


Judas

by sithmarauder



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone's a Bit of a Hypocrite, F/M, Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Grooming, Kylo Ren Needs a Punch in the Face, M/M, Misunderstandings, Past Childhood Sweethearts, Poe Dameron is Conflicted, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Seriously Snoke is Awful, Slow Burn, Snoke Is Awful, Torture, Violence, i'm serious about the Slow Burn tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-05-12 00:39:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 53,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5647588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithmarauder/pseuds/sithmarauder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Memories demand attention, because memories have teeth.”</i><br/>- Viola Davis</p><p>Wherein Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren come together, break apart, and struggle to reconcile and face their enemies as the galaxy shakes and reshapes itself around them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There was something dark in Ben Organa that was growing, and Force help him Poe found he was powerless to halt its progress._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've sold my soul to this trash ship and now I have 9000 words of fic on my computer.
> 
> I've done my best to make this as canon compliant as possible, with the obvious exception being the relationship between Poe and Kylo Ren (as Ben) and the friendship I imagine they could have had prior to the events of the new movie, seeing how close their parents were. Obviously, there are spoilers within. I've calculated the ages of each of the characters and Poe is approximately 2-3 years older then Ben; as a result, he is two and a half years older here.
> 
> As of right now this fic has been split into three chapters, because it was getting way longer than I thought it would be when I first started it. Right now it is sitting at 9k and is two-thirds finished, so I estimate it will be around 12-15k when complete.
> 
> EDIT: I lied.

 

> "How calmly you put  
>  your hand in mine,  
>  and left in my palm a lingering  
>  splinter of ice."
> 
> — Marina Tsvetaeva, from _Girlfriend_.

 

The boy was tall, rigid, and sullen, his eyes stubbornly downcast as he did his best to blend into the shadows at his mother’s side. Poe, at the tender age of six, old enough to know the stories of the boy’s mother but not old enough to know how he should act, took one look at him and told his own mother, with the impetuousness of children, that he did not _want_ to play with this child who looked for all the world like he couldn’t decide whether he should be stamping his foot or attempting to stand straighter and taller than the Great Temple.

“Give him a chance, Poe, and don’t be rude,” Shara Bey had said, with the no-nonsense tone of someone far more used to giving orders to adults than to unwilling children, and Poe acquiesced, if only because she was his mother and he still wanted her to like him; still worried that she would fly off at any moment and leave him behind with his grandfather like she had for the first half of his life, and all he would have left were memories of sitting in his mother’s lap as she took him up in her old RZ-1 A-wing. So he narrowed his eyes but grudgingly let go of his mother’s hand, shuffling forward to extend a different hand to the boy who, he realised, looked younger than Poe was, despite the fact that he was almost as tall as Poe himself.

Poe scowled. He didn’t like that. Still, he kept his hand in the air, waiting for the boy to move, which he didn’t until his mother— _Leia Organa_ , his mother had told him, _like from the stories I used to tell you_ —gave him a pointed nudge. The boy’s face morphed into a scowl that matched Poe’s own but he reached out and grasped Poe’s hand briefly before letting it go, as if the touch had burned him, despite the fact that the boy’s hand was cold as ice, and Poe decided that he didn't much care if this was the son of two of the galaxy's greatest heroes, he was still a prig.

“My name is Poe Dameron,” he said proudly. “I don’t like you.”

The boy’s pale face flushed an angry red as he jerked his head up, finally displaying some life. “My name’s Ben,” he hissed, “and I don’t like you back.”

Poe nodded, as if that solved everything, and he turned back to his mother and asked, “Can we go flying again?” even as Shara Bey and Leia Organa traded long-suffering looks over the heads of their sons, something Poe noticed but ignored. _Ben_ glared at him from his mother’s shadow, but Poe ignored him as well, until his mother told him, in no uncertain terms, that she and Ben’s mother had important things to discuss, so he and Ben had better get along for the afternoon at least.

When they came back it was to two boys bleeding and dirtied on the floor, and as Poe wiped his bloodied lip with one small fist he decided, in that moment, that he and Ben would never be friends, and there was nothing that could otherwise be done about it.

And, more importantly, nothing that he _wanted_ to be done about it.

\--     

If there was one thing Poe Dameron liked, it was flying with his mother. Shara Bey was an intimidating woman, a larger-than-life figure that was at once both _vibrant_ and so very alive, and it was she who became the fixation of Poe’s childhood admiration. She filled his head with stories of the Rebellion, of fighting alongside legendary heroes like Princess Leia and Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, but while Poe admired them all they were largely absent figures for the first couple years of his life and couldn’t compare to his own mother, whom he desired more than anything to emulate. He remembered things from before his mother returned for him, of living with his grandfather in a small apartment hidden away in some great city, and when he was older he’d wonder if Shara Bey had felt nervous, returning to her father after missing the first two or three years of her son’s life, Kes Dameron standing behind her—if she’d felt nervous moving with Poe and his father to the small colony on Yavin IV.

As a child, however, none of these thoughts had occurred to him. He’d been thrilled at the move, thrilled at seeing a new place, and his first time on a ship had been filled with wonder. He’d spent the entire time pointing at things and asking questions with all the eloquence a three-year-old boy could possess until his mother had settled him firmly in her lap to prevent him from wandering and potentially disturbing the pilots of the shuttle that was to carry them to their new home. In those early years his father had been a constant figure, present and supportive and loving, but not as _bright_ as his mother, nor as fierce. So he idolised her, wanted to be like her, and even as he learned about the daring actions of the Rebellion and the fall of the evil Empire he thought that no one could ever compare to his mother—not Princess Leia, not Han Solo, and not even Luke Skywalker.

She took him flying for the first time when he was six, and he thought the galaxy so vast and the stars so bright that for a moment he feared them until his mother rested one firm hand on his shoulder and told him to _concentrate, Poe, you must always think fast and act faster, and never give anyone else the chance to be quicker than you._

So he learned to think _quick_ , he learned to think _dangerous_ , and he swore in the shadows of the Force-sensitive tree his mother had planted that he would be a pilot just like Shara Bey. Ben Organa hadn’t been part of his life at all at that point.

Later, Poe would wish that he never had been.

\--      

Ben looked older than four and Poe, at seven, resented the fact that the younger boy was now taller than him rather than the same height, as he had been the year before, when it had been Leia Organa and not Han Solo standing at Ben’s side, trading exasperated looks with Poe’s mother as they pried the two scuffling boys apart.

“Get along,” Solo said gruffly, and Poe was too busy watching him with shining eyes to realise what was going on until Solo and his parents beat a hasty retreat, leaving him alone with the boy whose nose he’d bloodied last year for being a grim little brat.

“… I still don’t like you,” Poe said, and Ben responded by tilting his chin up and straightening his posture. Poe scoffed, spinning around and heading for the door of the house, only stopped by a quiet, reedy voice asking, “Where are you going?”

When he turned Ben was looking at him, suddenly appearing small in a way he had never seemed before, the arrogance in his eyes replaced by uncertainty as he shuffled his feet and glanced nervously around at what Poe realised, somewhat belatedly, was a still-unfamiliar house on a still-unfamiliar world.

“To the river,” Poe said at last, and he watched as Ben cocked his head curiously before he seemed to realise what he was doing and straightened up.

“Oh. Whatever, then,” Ben said, and Poe rolled his eyes because who sounded like that at _four years old?_ He wrenched the door open and made it five steps out before he stopped and caught sight of the tree that his parents had planted upon moving here, the tree that seemed to be chiding him gently, and his small shoulders shuddered as he unwillingly turned around and said, grudgingly, “do you want to come with me?”

Ben ran out of the house so quickly that Poe wondered if he’d spontaneously gotten his hand caught in an energy beam, but instead of commenting Poe just shrugged and began racing down a pathway he’d scouted many times before with his father, his small feet taking him to the river’s edge. The week’s rain had made the waters higher, and his father had expressly told him not to go, but Poe had never listened to his father like he did his mother, and maybe if he saw the river and gave his head a soak Ben would stop being a brat.

It was a sound plan until Ben, not used to the soft ground of the riverbank, slipped and tumbled in, his long limbs flailing in the waters as he struggled to keep himself afloat. _Think fast, act faster_ , Shara Bey’s voice said inside Poe’s head, and so without pausing to second-guess himself he took off, running down the bank, shouting at Ben to try to grab a hold of something as he tugged a loose vine off one of the trees, tossing it into the water and watching as Ben grabbed it with shaky hands before Poe tied the other end around a tree, his arms not strong enough to pull Ben to safety on his own.

Later, when the two boys lay panting on the bank, Ben placed one chilly hand over Poe’s, a quiet gesture of gratitude that made Poe jump. Later still, when Kes Dameron berated both boys for their foolishness and Han Solo looked as if his head were about to explode, Ben reached for Poe’s hand again, and this time Poe gave it quite willingly, letting their fingers curl together in a gesture of solidarity.

To the side, Poe could see his mother smiling faintly even as she allowed Poe’s father to scold them, and Poe just squeezed Ben’s hand tighter.

He was gratified when the other boy squeezed his hand back.

\--      

When Poe was eight his mother died, and it was like the sun itself had been snuffed out. Kes Dameron held it together well, but between his tears Poe could see how his father’s hands shook and how his eyes weren’t quite as warm and relaxed as Poe was used to seeing. These things were all dismissed in the wake of Poe’s own grief, however, and he spent two days laying on the floor of his room, alternating between sobbing and staring blankly at the hologram of his mother’s A-wing, flicking it on and off and on and off until his eyes became sore and he passed out from sheer exhaustion. His grandfather flew in for the funeral, and Poe almost knocked him over when he flew into his arms, screaming his frustration at the world.

His grandfather wasn’t the only visitor, however, but even the sombre presences of _the_ Princess Leia and _the_ Luke Skywalker couldn’t lift Poe’s spirits, especially when he'd seen one of them before. He stared numbly as the pyre was lit, his eyes tearing up from the smoke, but he didn’t move until he felt a cold hand slide into his, and he whipped around to meet Ben’s dark eyes as the other boy huddled close to him, his skin chilly despite the heat of the fire and his solemn eyes dry despite the smoke, a welcome presence of silver and ice. Poe wondered if this was how Ben had felt when the river had pulled him under, and for a moment Poe couldn’t breathe, but when Ben drew him into a careful hug he shuddered and slumped against him, his own eyes finally spilling their hot tears, his heart too broken for anymore solitude. All the while Ben held him, seeming far older than his six years, and Poe barely registered it when a third person joined them and he looked up into the sad face of Ben’s mother, Leia, Luke Skywalker standing a few metres away but still creating the illusion of hovering.

“Your mother was a dear friend,” Leia said, and Poe sniffed. Ben shifted to accommodate his mother, and when Poe chanced a look he could see his father smiling sadly at them before he returned his eyes to the pyre.

Poe didn’t look back at it, but he swore and reaffirmed then that he would do whatever it took to live a life that would make his mother proud. He would become a pilot, the best pilot in the galaxy, and he would not let Shara Bey’s memory down.

\--      

Poe didn’t know when he first learned of Ben’s more unique abilities. Growing up in the shadow of Skywalker’s gratitude, Poe had always known the Force existed—it was hard to deny that when he saw evidence of it every morning as soon as he stepped outside of his home to see one little tree that did not fit in with the others all around it—but it was one thing to know something existed and another thing completely to actually experience it. He was no Force-sensitive, he felt no residual energy from the tree beyond a strange, emanating calmness, but Ben always had, from the very beginning, and Poe remembered watching as Ben carefully levitated small objects inside the Dameron homestead.  Poe also remembered the one time he'd thrown a small rock at his friend in frustration only for Ben to reach out and stop the stone in mid-air, where it’d hung until Poe, entranced, had asked how he was doing that, and Ben’s panicked _I don’t know_ had resulted in him dropping it. Currently they were sitting outside, listening to the rushing river, and instead of his father’s game pieces Ben, at ten years old, was levitating pebbles in front of Poe's face.

“How do you do that?” Poe asked for what seemed like the umpteenth time, his words muffled by the grass he’d decided to chew on.

Ben snorted and the pebble wavered, but he scrunched his brow and stuck out his tongue. “You look like a runyip,” he said. “Spit that grass out.”

Poe, twelve, made a face and acquiesced, but was long past being offended by the younger boy’s tendency to try ordering him around. He waved his hands above and below the pebbles, smirking when Ben’s concentration wavered and his friend scowled at him.

“Hey, Ben,” Poe whispered, leaning close to his friend’s ear, “bet you can’t lift that big rock over there.” He pointed to the big rock in question before settling back on his haunches, waiting to see if Ben would rise to the bait.

He did, of course. Ben never could resist a challenge to his pride and vanity, and Poe _absolutely_ abused the shit out of that, and would forever. Ben gave a little sniff, turning around and holding his hand out with a flourish. The rock twitched under Ben’s impressive sense of dramatics but otherwise didn’t move, and Poe cackled as Ben scowled before he renewed his concentration, holding both hands out this time, his scrawny child’s body vibrating with the strain. Suddenly, with a cry of rage that wiped the smirk right off Poe’s face, Ben lifted the rock, sweat breaking out on his brow as the rock continued to rise shakily, as if fuelled by Ben’s anger and frustration.

“Whoa, whoa, okay, that’s enough,” Poe said, reaching out to slide one hand down Ben’s arm until he reached his friend’s outstretched fingers, which he took carefully as Ben abruptly slumped forward, the rock falling to the ground with a muted _thud_ behind them.

“It was easier when I was angry,” Ben said, like he’d just discovered something important. “I’ll do better one day—I’ll be stronger than uncle Luke, even, and I’ll be able to do even more.”

“Sure thing, buddy,” Poe said cheerfully, ignoring Ben’s hiss at the hated nickname, a reminder that Ben may be taller now, but Poe was still older. “Let me know when you can stop blaster fire with your mind and I’ll be real impressed.”

“I’ll stop more than that,” Ben promised.

“Sure, Benny,” was the response, and Poe ducked before Ben’s elbow could connect with his ribs, laughing all the way to the river.

\--      

“I’m gonna be a pilot,” Poe said one day when they were on their backs in the grass by the river’s edge. The weather was mild, semi-unusual for that time of year, but Poe didn’t mind. He hated hot weather, and he certainly never would have been able to live on a place like Tatooine, with a constant forecast of _sand_ and _heat_ all year long.

“You want to become a pilot?” Ben asked, brow furrowing.  Or Poe assumed it was, anyway. Ben had become more serious after his uncle had started training him, but Poe hadn’t been concerned, he’d been _excited_ , and not just because Ben was now training under the legendary Luke Skywalker. No, he was excited because it meant Ben was living on Yavin IV permanently now, as Skywalker’s Jedi Temple was located on the planet in the remains of the Great Temple, and that meant Poe got to see his friend more than ever. He smiled at the thought, blinking as he heard Ben ask, “For the New Republic?”

“Well, yeah,” Poe said casually, hands behind his head as he lay in the grass. “Hardly gonna join up with the stormtroopers, right? Where else am I gonna fly? I want to be the best _pilot_ in the galaxy, not the best pirate or Evil Warlord or what-have you.” He turned to look at Ben with a raised eyebrow, and true to Poe’s predictions Ben was frowning.

“It’s a stagnant beast,” Ben muttered, looking away. “Only fourteen years in and they’re already complacent. It gives my mother headaches, and then my father’s cranky because mother is.”

“Your whole family’s a bit cranky, bud,” Poe said with a helpful whistle, ignoring the sharp look at the abbreviated endearment as he directed a warm smile at his friend. “How’s Jedi training going?”

Ben’s face shut down so abruptly that Poe scrambled to his knees, holding his hands up in an automatic gesture of placation. “Or, y’know, say nothing. That’s fine too,” he said. “We can talk about something else.”

Ben stood, leaving Poe to hasten after him.

“Hey, _hey_ ,” Poe said angrily, grabbing Ben roughly by the arm in an attempt to halt him. Ben whipped around, eyes angry, but Poe held on, his own eyes narrowed as well. “None of that kriffing fodder, Ben. Not with me, you hear?”

Ben continued to glare at him, and for a moment Poe thought he was going to stamp off angrily again but suddenly Ben, who had a good forehead on him in height, was pushing him back, _back_ , and then Poe was hitting a tree and suddenly there were lips on his and oh, _oh_ , was this was kissing Ben felt like? His free hand immediately reached for Ben’s hair, tangling in the dark strands, and he felt one of Ben’s hands settle on his hip while the other remained raised above their heads, still held in Poe’s grasp.

“I don’t want to talk about training,” Ben said after a moment, his normally reedy voice deepened with the beginnings of age and his eyes flashing, intense and almost desperate. “Not with you. Please. I want to keep this—us.”

“Yeah, sure,” Poe said, dazed. “No training. Got it.” He paused. “But how about you show me that last trick again, yeah?”

And with a smirk that made his young face look years older, Ben obliged.

\--      

“Why do you think Vader was so powerful?” Ben asked one evening as they sat under the old A-wing, his long legs drawn up to his chest and his ankles crossed as he stared ahead with a stony look on his face. Poe, on his stomach beside him, possessing the wisdom of any seventeen-year-old, just hummed.

“My parents said he was once a Jedi, right, but he fell to the dark side, and he gained power, but at the cost of destroying everything he fell to the dark side _for_.” Poe shrugged. “I don’t really know what they meant. Dark side. Light side. An invisible energy can’t really change your entire being, can it? Sounds like an excuse.”

Ben was silent for a few moments, still staring straight ahead. Poe could feel a strange tension rolling from him, disrupting the peace the trees saturated the area with. “I’m not so sure. Sometimes I—never mind.”

Poe sat up, curious now. “You what?”

“I said _never mind_ ,” Ben snapped, and there it was again, that intense aura of anger that seemed to appear more and more, making Poe move back. Ben seemed to snap out of it then, his head lowering, and he mumbled an apology. Poe just shrugged it off and Ben uncurled his legs.

“Sometimes I feel like… like the tree, by your house. I’m happy. It’s calm. And sometimes I’m so _angry_ , and it’s like I’m not me anymore. There are things I want to do that I can’t do, and I know I can be better, that I can train to be stronger, but Lu—my master won’t tell me what to do so I can achieve that. Aren’t masters supposed to want their apprentices to surpass them?”

Poe, not expecting this confession, could only shrug again. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Seems logical. But I mean, not sure Vader’s someone you wanna emulate, is all, even if he was your grandpa. My father’s told me some stories about life under the Empire, and it seems to me that that kind of power is never worth the price you ultimately pay for it.”

Ben’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment there was such a startling amount of hate and disdain in his eyes that Poe felt his breath catch. “You know nothing.”

Poe felt the kernel of anger in his own chest ignite, and he stood and snarled a quick _yeah well fuck you too, Ben Organa_ , as he stomped out of the old hanger, not sure where to go but sure he didn’t want to spend his time around Ben when the other man was being an ass _._ His feet ended up taking him to the river, though, where they usually did, and so Poe wasn’t surprised when, awhile later, he heard the crunch of underbrush and saw Ben sit uncertainly beside him after a second of hesitation.

“I’m sorry,” Ben said helplessly, and when Poe didn’t respond he reached out a tentative hand, resting it over where Poe’s lay in the grass, just like he had when they’d been soaking wet children grateful to be alive. Poe exhaled the angry breath he’d been holding in and let his head drop to Ben’s shoulder.

“You’re such an idiot,” Poe grumbled. Ben laughed, but it was shaky, like he was forcing part of it.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, shifting so that he could turn Poe’s head towards him, fixing Poe with one of his intense looks. “Forgive me?”

Poe pretended to consider it. “Well,” he said at last, “just this once. Someone has to keep you grounded, after all.”

“You’re one to talk, flyboy. _You’re_ the one that needs to be grounded.  One day I'm going to wake up to discover you've up and left the planet with no intention to come back,” Ben said in response, his voice laced with old amusement (and there, under the surface, that edge of darkness and resentment), and as Poe curled into his friend’s side and stared up at the skies of Yavin IV he couldn’t help but sense that something had changed, and he wasn’t sure it was for the better.

\--      

“You couldn’t just come by and say hullo? You gotta talk by hologram?” Poe said with a groan, his head hitting the back of the couch in his family’s old home. He ran a hand through sweat-dampened curls, still jittery from the adrenaline rush that came with flying and working on his mother’s A-wing, upgrading what he could and maintaining what he couldn’t.

Ben’s eyes crinkled at the corners and he held up one hand, long fingers extending as if he could reach out and touch Poe, despite his only being a hologram. He was in a good mood today, it seemed, and Poe was grateful. Ben had been more and more withdrawn lately, and the last time he’d been over he’d spent the entire time drilling Poe for everything he knew about Darth Vader. Poe had told him, of course. He saw little reason not to.

“I could,” Ben said, “but I’d have to sneak out. We’re doing something important.”

“Thought you said no training talk?” Poe said, smirking, and for a moment Ben’s face looked funny, lost, _hungry_ , but Poe chalked it up to the inconsistencies of the holographic device. It was an older model. “How many parsecs is it gonna take you to get over here, huh, buddy?”

“Don’t call me that,” Ben said, but he was over in far less than one, and if his kisses felt a little more intense and his touch a little rougher, well, Poe chalked it up to months of Jedi celibacy.

\--       

The last time began like any other, but it wasn’t long until it evolved into something new, masking a change just below the surface that Poe found he was afraid to touch. Ben was different, _intense_ ; Poe had sensed it that night by the river and before, in the hanger, and any other time Ben spoke with that new, distant edge, as if he were keeping the lid shut on a volatile mixture. There was something there, something lurking beneath the surface, but Poe, for once in his life, was afraid. He was afraid of Ben’s growing obsession with Vader, afraid of the way his face would sometimes harden into a mask that was so different from _Ben_ that Poe felt as if he were looking at an entirely different person. There was something dark in Ben Organa that was _growing_ , and Force help him Poe found he was powerless to halt its progress, so instead he pasted the confident smile on his face and acted like nothing was wrong, like Ben was still _Ben_ instead of a stranger wearing Ben’s face.

So when this new Ben arrived out of the blue while Poe was tinkering with the A-wing and all but yanked him off the hull, mouth crashing against his, Poe allowed him, because he was young and in love and _stupid,_ too young and stupid to realise what was going on, too young and stupid to help, so he did what he could and hoped his efforts were enough to keep Ben grounded in reality.

He allowed Ben to press him up against the old A-wing without protest—allowed Ben to steal his breath as he hissed and fumbled with his clothes until there was just skin and metal and a strange mixture of pleasure and pain and warm affection and _worry_ , their clasped hands trapped against their chests between them—and he said nothing about the bruising strength of Ben’s grip or the almost desperate flavour of his kisses. He merely tilted his head back and sighed with satisfaction, allowing his eyes to slide shut, and afterwards, when they were pulling their clothes back on, he reached out to grab Ben’s hand again, and after a moment Ben squeezed back. Poe never commented on how the gesture seemed forced and awkward in a way it hadn’t been since they were children.

Later, when he learned of what had happened at the temple, when he learned of all the death and destruction and _loss_ , he wished he had said something, _acted_ , even though the logical part of his brain said that there was nothing he could have done. Either way it was too late.  Poe was eighteen and Ben was _gone,_ just like Shara Bey, and Poe rather thought his father had expected him to cry but instead all Poe had done was rise to his feet, nodding once to the flickering, life-sized hologram of a grieving Han Solo, and left the house without looking back. The river had seemed colder after that, more unforgiving, as if it mourned, too, though Poe knew it was the same as it had always been.

He pushed one hand into the cold water and left it there until it was numb, and when he pulled it out there was only one thing on his mind: a name, given to him by Ben’s father as he explained that there had been a massacre at the temple, that Ben was gone, and as Poe clenched his hand into a fist and at last allowed himself to scream his rage into the water he imprinted that name into his mind like a burning brand.

_Kylo Ren._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has inspired fanart by some truly amazing individuals and I'm going to cry (I'm crying right now):
> 
> [Sketches](http://pallasgrey.tumblr.com/post/142970324154) by [pallasgrey](http://pallasgrey.tumblr.com/post/142970324154)  
> [height difference](http://benamidalaas.tumblr.com/post/137708163086/height-diff-we-make-it-work-submission-art-by) by [autodrive](http://autodrive.tumblr.com/)  
> [sitting by the river](http://autodrive.tumblr.com/post/137931172370/just-sitting-n-talking-about-life) by [autodrive](http://autodrive.tumblr.com/)
> 
> \--
> 
> \- I chose to go with the name _Ben Organa_ because I've taken Han Solo's "not anymore" comment following the hero's "are you Han Solo?" to mean both that he's not who he was some thirty years ago but also that he likely took Leia's last name, if anyone changed names at all.  
>  \- Runyips are grazing animals found on Yavin IV  
> \- Because I'm a fucking nerd who has played Star Wars video games since I've been old enough to hold a controller, I've decided to set Luke's new Jedi Temple on Yavin IV as a little nod to its existence in the game _Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy_ , which ate up a fair amount of my free time as a child.  
> \- The tree Poe is always referring to is a Force-sensitive tree that Poe's mother, Shara Bey, helped retrieve fragments of, alongside Luke Skywalker. In gratitude, Skywalker gifted a grafting of the tree to Shara and her husband, Kes Dameron, which they planted on Yavin IV. It was originally situated in the Jedi Temple in Coruscant, and other such trees can be found in the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine in games such as _Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic_ and _Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords_. The tree on Coruscant can also be seen in the tv series _Star Wars: The Clone Wars_.
> 
> Comments are greatly appreciated! It's been five years since I attempted to write something for Star Wars, and the first time I've been brave enough to post any of it. If you have any questions (about this fic, about Star Wars, anything), please feel to ask, and also please feel free to talk to me on my [tumblr!](http://deadhabsburgs.tumblr.com/). I love talking to people because I'm a big nerd.


	2. fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Kylo Ren moved like a predator, sure and strong and with a deadly grace that spoke of many kills, but when he moved his hands there was a strange hesitance that Poe hadn’t expected to see in someone no better than a trained killer._
> 
> Poe joins the New Republic, then the Resistance, and gets tortured by a masked man for his efforts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, so, _first off_ the response to this fic has been so overwhelmingly amazing that I've probably spent most of this week sobbing. You are all incredibly wonderful and every single comment has helped me find the muse to continue this. Thank you so, so much. Seriously. You guys brought this chapter from 3000 to over 6000 words and made me finish up, edit, and release this chapter a few days earlier than expected, and I really hope it lives up to everyone's expectations. You're all fantastic.

In all the romantic holovids his father liked watching, and in all the literature he liked downloading and reading when he thought Poe wasn’t paying attention, a hero who had suffered a painful loss to the other side of a war often joined the military in the hopes of avenging their dead partner. Poe knew this because he had often read some of those pieces and watched some of those holovids, and he had wondered if his father had ever wanted to get back into the fight, to avenge his wife. Poe didn’t know, but in the end he didn’t join up with the New Republic because he wanted to avenge Ben. Sure, Ben played a part in his decisions, but then again so did many others—his mother, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker. The point was, Ben wasn’t the sole driving factor. Poe joined the New Republic Starfleet because, at the end of the day, it was the right thing to do; because it would have made his mother proud (and maybe there was a part of him that joined because this was his chance to act before it was too late, like he hadn’t been able to do with Ben). More than that, however, he joined because he _wanted_ to, because he’d always wanted to, both before Ben and after. Ben had been a welcome silver lining in Poe’s golden world, but he had never been the focal point in it, nor had he been Poe’s sole passion. He’d simply been _there_ , a strong presence like his mother had been and, like her, he was gone too, though unlike her, Poe learned nothing of Ben Organa in the New Republic, because unlike Ben Organa Shara Bey had been a _hero_ and he learned, very early on, that even with his childhood idolisation he had grossly underestimated Shara Bey’s legacy.

It made him work harder, faster, until promotions were slapping him quicker than he could recover. He was given command of Rapier Squadron and stationed on the Republic base at Mirrin Prime, something he took to with great pride and enthusiasm, even as Ben’s words haunted his mind and he began to realise that Ben was _right_ about the New Republic in ways that were starting to creep up on Poe.

He forced himself to dismiss Ben’s words as those of a dead man (boy), however, and concentrated on his squad. He learned their names—Kun, Arana, Muran, and the little BB-8 unit that he took to immediately, and who took to him in return—and the names of their important family members, their dreams and their hopes, and he tried to live up to the trust they placed in him every time they flew out on a mission, vanilla run or no.

Poe Dameron was determined to be the best damn pilot in the galaxy, like he’d told one particularly stubborn Skywalker boy all those years ago, and he wouldn’t let his squad pay for his future mistakes with their lives. He had let that happen once, when he had seen Ben slipping down and said _nothing_ because he didn’t _understand;_ when he had lost Ben because he hadn’t tried to pull him out.

Poe didn’t intend to ever make that mistake twice. He would not let his squad suffer for his inaction or slow thinking. _Think fast, act faster_ , he thought to himself, and resolved that that would be his motto from then on. He’d trust his gut; he’d trust his reflexes. He’d trust his mind.

He would accept nothing less from himself.

\--        

“Rapier Leader, those are TIEs,” Karé Kun said, her voice grim in Poe’s ear as Rapier Squadron began to enter attack position for what was supposed to have been _literally anything other than this_. When the distress signal had first come in—from a freighter, the _Yissira Zyde,_ over Suraz IV—Poe had been expecting smugglers at best, and pirates or slavers at worst. He hadn’t been expecting TIE-fighters at all, certainly not _eight_ of them, and as he gave the order for Rapier Squadron to break into two groups of two he did his best to keep his voice confident, loudly exclaiming every time he felled a TIE.

“You’re a crazy bastard, Dameron,” Arana laughed. “What’s that now, three?”

“Five,” Poe corrected with a shit-eating grin his squadmates could not see but could damn well hear.

If anyone noticed Poe’s silence following the sight of Muran’s X-wing bursting into flame minutes later, they were all polite—or shocked—enough not to comment.

\--       

Major Lonno Deso sighed at him for the umpteenth time that day, and Poe briefly considered the repercussions of knocking the man’s teeth out. He’d been having those thoughts more and more ever since the _Yissira Zyde_ incident and the death of Muran, and he felt a hot spike of anger in his chest as Deso dismissed his concerns about the First Order _again_ , and suddenly all he could think about were Ben’s words, Ben’s _warning_ , that the New Republic was no better than a stagnant beast, their complacency meaning that that First Order gained more traction with each day of inactivity. Remnants were not full forces but they were _dangerous_ , especially if allowed to join with other remnants, and those TIEs, Poe knew, had been state-of-the-art, zipping around using modern battle tactics and strategies. Whoever or whatever the First Order was, they were growing more dangerous by the day, and his own frustration grew the more the New Republic ignored that.

“We need to alert the Resistance, then, if you’re not going to do anything,” Poe said, simmering anger in his voice.

“I _can’t_ do anything. Republic Command has ordered us to stand down, and I doubt the Resistance is in any better position to do anything about it. I don’t need to remind you of the penalties for disobeying orders, Commander.” Deso ran a hand through his dark hair, glancing up at the ceiling with a sigh. His shoulders slumped. “There’s nothing we can do except wait, and respond when it happens again.”

“By then it will be too late,” Poe argued, but Deso was resolute that they had _orders_ and, well, that was fine. That was absolutely fine, Poe thought days later as Rapier Squadron primed their engines and headed up for another routine patrol mission; _fine_ , he thought as he asked BB-8 to track the _Yissira Zyde’s_ last known hyperspace route; _fine_ , he shouted as he fought and evaded the two dozen TIE fighters that filled the air above OR-Kappa-2722; _fine_ , he thought as BB-8 located the _Yissira Zyde’s_ ID transponder signal within one of the old Star Destroyers that served to mark this place as a First Order base; _fine_ , he breathed as they made it back to Mirrin Prime _alive_ , of all things, only to be quickly led to a small room containing a familiar face with decades of sadness etched into it.

“We could use some rash these days,” Leia Organa said, and though he hadn’t seen her in years suddenly he found himself back on Yavin IV, her son’s blood on his tiny fist, and for the first time in days all he could think of was Ben, and he saw that same sadness reflected in her own eyes. He wondered, briefly, where Solo was, before he thought about Ben’s words, about how the Republic would never do anything before it was too late. He felt his blood boil the way it once had when he thought about serving the Republic and he knew, he just _knew_ , that he could bring more to the Resistance than he ever could to the crumbling skeleton that was the New Republic. He would commit everything he had—everything he _was_ —to this cause, like he had once been willing to commit it to the New Republic, before a memory-man and Poe’s own eyes told him it wasn’t worth it.

 _Screw the orders_ , he thought, and he said _yes_ to the General’s offer with zero regrets and no hesitation. The Resistance needed the skills of someone like him, needed the best damn pilot in the galaxy on their side, and who was he to say no?

(So in the end maybe Ben hadn’t been the sole motivation behind Poe’s joining the New Republic or the Resistance, but Poe couldn’t deny he’d played his part in it, either.)

\--        

His new ship wasn’t as nice as the one he’d had as Rapier Leader, but it was his and he _loved_ it. BB-8 chirped happily the first time they circled it, and the droid almost seemed to laugh as Poe climbed into the cockpit like he was six years old again, waiting for his mother to follow and take him up into the air.

“I think we oughta personalise this a bit, don’t you think?” Poe drawled lazily, grinning at the affirmative noise he got from BB-8. “Well,” he said, climbing out of the cockpit and surveying the side, “best get on that.”

\--        

“What are you doing here?” It wasn’t the most eloquent way to greet one’s former squadmates, but when Poe exited the hanger bay covered in black paint, BB-8 rolling contentedly at his side, he sure hadn’t been expecting to see Karé Kun waiting for him, a knowing smile on her face as Iolo Arana gave Poe a little wave from where he stood casually beside her, like their suddenly showing up in one of the Resistance bases—the one their former commander was also conveniently in—was of little importance.

“You didn’t think we’d abandon you, did you?” Kun said, sounding offended that Poe could ever have considered it as she and Arana stared him down with twin expressions that clearly said, _you’re such an idiot._ Poe wasn’t offended, though. Instead he laughed brightly, eyes lighting up as he strolled forward and pulled his two friends into one quick hug, made only somewhat awkward by the fact that both Arana and Kun were taller than he was. Beside him, BB-8 chirped excitedly, and Poe couldn’t help the grin that stole across his face at the droid’s delight.

“Not that we were the ones doing the abandoning,” Arana said pointedly as Poe pulled back, and Poe flushed a little guiltily at that, rubbing the back of his neck with a shrug.

“I didn’t want to ask you to give anything up.”

“Our decision, Commander,” Arana replied as BB-8 rolled forward to give his legs a nudge. “Good to see you again, BB-8.”

Poe peered at them carefully, then shrugged again. “It’s great to see you both, really, and you don’t have to call me Commander,” he said, genuinely meaning it. He hadn’t realised how much he’d craved a familiar face, craved prolonged interaction with other sentient beings that he could build functioning relationships from, though he did have BB-8, and in many ways BB-8 was enough. His affection for the droid was something absolutely everyone could see, as was BB-8’s loyalty to Poe himself. “Besides,” he continued before the mood could get too sombre, winking, “I’ve heard rumours that Stiletto Squadron and Dagger Squadron were getting two new captains. Now, are you going to spill so I can congratulate you properly, or are we going to dance around it?”

Kun snorted, giving his arm a shove. “Yeah, yeah, congratulations to us. We’ve tossed our lot in with this ragtag band because of you, Dameron, so your gut had damn well better come through, else we’ll have given poor Major Deso an aneurysm for jack-all.”

“I don’t know,” Arana said absently, stroking his chin, “do we really need a good reason to give him one?”

Poe tilted his head back and laughed, warmth and relief coursing through him as he slung an arm around Arana’s shoulders, pulling his head down to deposit a quick kiss on his temple. Kun grinned and Arana looked falsely affronted, but Poe just steamrolled forward, grabbing their hands and leading them off the tarmac, chattering on about anything and everything that came to mind. Without the division of rank between them it felt easier, speaking to them, knowing that in the future he wouldn’t have to put on the act all the time, as commanding officers were required to do. He still outranked them, in a way, and he held a more trusted position, but he was coming to learn that sometimes trusted positions meant division and loneliness.

Burden.

He saw that burden on General Organa’s lined face whenever he passed her, and each time part of him wanted to reach out, to collect her in his arms and try to erase the sadness from her face, as he had once tried to do to her son, but that wasn’t fair to her. Leia Organa was stronger than anyone in the Resistance. Beyond the legends that painted her as a hero of the Rebellion, Leia Organa was a woman who had lost her parents, her entire planet, her son, and finally her husband, and maybe it had bowed her back but she _still stood tall_ , a beacon of reason and hope that the Resistance looked to for leadership and guidance, and Poe was often struck breathless by her—her strength, her endurance, even her flaws, all things that had made Poe realise that she was far more than just a legend. Yet Poe was astute enough to realise how alone she must have been. _Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown_ , she had once told him in a down moment, smiling wryly as they’d gone over plans. Poe had bitten his lip and looked away, unable to meet her knowing gaze.

Unwilling to tell her that he saw so much of Ben in her that sometimes it physically _hurt_.

Shaking his head to clear his mind of thoughts of Ben, Poe steered his friends towards his second favourite building, uncaring that they’d probably already seen it. Arana and Kun were good enough to oblige him either way, and if they weren’t going to comment on his eagerness and the way the relief likely poured out from the cracks in his smile, Poe wasn’t going to bring it up.

“I’ll have to introduce you to Red and Blue Squadrons,” he said earnestly as they walked into the mess hall, and watching Kun’s indulgent smile and Arana’s more reserved but still genuine one Poe exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He was still separated from them in many ways but here, at last, were people he could spend his time with; people he could talk and whinge to about Ello Asty’s frustrating inability to follow orders, the terrible food they sometimes had to contend with, and other trivial, daily things. It wasn’t perfect, but he had seen how isolation could affect someone. After Ben, he’d never truly been close to another humanoid, with BB-8 being the closest friend he’d had in years, and while he didn’t know if he’d necessarily ever find that depth of friendship and shared experience again, it didn’t mean he wasn’t going to do his damndest to try. Ben Organa was _dead_ , the Jedi were _dead_ , and Poe wasn’t about to put his life on hold for them and sacrifice all other potential relationships out of respect for a ghost who’d probably tell him to stop being such a flyboy and come back down to the ground and see what was right in front of him. Poe had been offered yet another unexpected opportunity in the hectic life he called his own, and he wasn’t about to waste it. So he dragged Arana and Kun over to where Blue Squadron sat, watching with smug satisfaction as Arana and Pava eyed each other mistrustfully while Kun and Wexley went straight for a friendly handshake behind the back of a frustrated looking Asty, and as BB-8 beeped at him from by Poe’s knee, Poe smiled.

Finally, for the first time in over a decade, he felt as though he were truly at home.

\--        

They called him Black Leader, after the X-wing he had repainted and proudly named _Black One_. Poe was preferable to _the most handsome (and talented) pilot in the galaxy_ , of course, but _Black Leader_ was indefinitely better than _Red-Blue Leader_ (which gave the impressions of loss and bruises, which, in his opinion, was bad for morale and his pride) and a vast improvement over _that crazy kriffing Dameron_ , something Arana and Wexley were partial to, so he went with it. He thought of Ben sometimes, when he looked at it, and allowed himself to think, in quiet moments when he was alone, that Ben might have approved.

\--       

He ran several missions for the Resistance after that, and he liked to think that General Organa’s trust in him came from his hard work and not just the fact that he’d used to let her son fuck him in the shadows of the old hanger on Yavin IV. Sometimes he wondered if she was really aware of that at all, for while the stereotype held that mothers were all-knowing, he knew for a fact that General Organa, for all that she had become a focal figure in his life, was only human and had her flaws as well. So had his own mother, and as Poe aged he found himself thinking more and more of the stories he’d willed himself to forget over the years, of things his father had told him when he’d been old enough to understand the concept of evil and grey morality and suffering. Poe wanted so desperately for the Resistance to succeed where it seemed both the Rebellion and the New Republic had failed. He was exhausted, like he held the weight of an entire planet on his shoulders, but if he carried the weight of a planet he knew for a fact that General Organa was carrying an entire star system.

“I want the stories my father told me to stay stories,” he told General Organa one day, following the success of _Operation: Sabre Strike_ , which saw the victorious transfer of sensitive information from a First Order sympathiser into Resistance hands. “I hate to say it,” he continued, wringing his hands, “but we need heroes more than ever at times like this.”

“We have heroes,” the General reminded him, giving Poe a pointed look. His mouth quirked up a bit at that and his eyes seemed to regain some life, for despite the hopelessness he occasionally found himself overwhelmed by Leia Organa was still one of _his_ heroes, and her good opinion meant the world to him, despite the fact that she had long since ceased to be a flawless figure of mythological proportions in his mind.

“We need legends, then,” Poe said with a bit of his usual charm creeping in, but then his face sobered up and he dropped his head into his hands. “We need Jedi.” _We could have used you, Ben_ , he didn’t say. He wondered if she heard it anyway.

The General was silent for a moment after that but then she said, with an odd sort of tentative reservation, “I have a new mission for you.”

\--        

The sands of Jakku were cold in the darkness, almost unbearably so, and the look Lor San Tekka gave him when Poe asked for the map served only to chill him more. He had little time to dwell on that, however, for within moments of receiving the map piece BB-8 was frantically warning him about approaching enemies, and then it was a blur of sweat and heat and _death_ as Tuanul burned around him, and all he could concentrate on was Shara Bey’s voice as she whispered _think fast, act faster,_ even as the stormtroopers disabled the engines of his beloved X-wing and he was forced to improvise, entrusting the map to BB-8 before he crouched behind the sand dune, firing his blaster with a deadly precision that belayed the flighty, light-hearted persona he portrayed to his squad. When the inhabitants of Tuanul were rounded up Poe held his breath, watching as a new figure arrived, a shadowy man of death wrapped in black and reeking of blood. Kylo Ren was a name on the tongues of those who needed to know, and Poe, well, Poe needed to know, had ever since that day fifteen years ago, but even he was not privy to any other information the Resistance may or may not have had on him.

All he knew was that Kylo Ren had been responsible for the massacre at the temple. He was the one responsible for Ben’s death, for Skywalker’s disappearance, for the oppressive hole in Poe’s mind where his mother’s bright light had been joined by Ben’s steady silver presence.

“You know what I’ve come for,” Ren said, the oppressive silence following Tuanul’s subjugation making it possible for Poe to hear.

“I know where you came from,” San Tekka responded, “before you called yourself Kylo Ren.”

Poe’s curiosity sparked at that, but he didn’t let it distract him, and when San Tekka was cut down and the scent of death increased Poe thought, _this is it_ , and fired a shot that sailed straight and true except for when it _didn’t_ because Ren had reached out, had stopped it with just a wave of his hand in a display of power than Poe had only ever seen once to a lesser extent and in its untrained form, but he had no time to think of Ben because suddenly he couldn’t move and he had to _stand_ there as he was grabbed and dragged and thrown before this masked monster, and Poe could almost feel the dark energy crackling around him, even as Ren seemed to pause, saying nothing for long enough that Poe began to grow nervous, wondering why the other man was so _silent_.

So Poe smiled, his lips cracked, sweat running down his face, and he asked Ren who should be the first to speak, and that seemed to snap Ren out of whatever he’d been thinking for suddenly it was all business and demands and then there was _nothing_ , nothing, and his last thoughts before oblivion were of cold rivers and colder hands, because his life had never revolved around Ben but somehow, _somehow_ , it kept coming back to him anyway.

\--       

The pain was intense, physically worse than anything he had ever experienced, but he endured. When he could he remembered his mother, and when he couldn’t remember her he thought of his father, of the Resistance, and even of Ben, and he escaped into his mind by imagining scenes that had never happened: his mother watching as he received command of Rapier Squadron, and again as he accepted the General’s offer to join the Resistance, becoming _Black Leader_ ; the Jedi Order returning, growing, _flourishing_ under Skywalker’s careful command; General Organa offering him a spot in the Resistance, and his hasty acceptance of that offer, followed by a great victory for the Resistance; his father, smiling and laughing, going grey together with Poe’s mother; Ben, smiling as well, standing against the backdrop of Yavin IV and Shara Bey’s tree, the rest of his features slightly blurred as Poe attempted to add on years that Ben had never got to experience. He let these false memories comfort him as the First Order tried their damndest to extract BB-8’s location from him, and when they left he allowed himself a moment’s respite, despite the fact that he knew they’d be back.

Poe was an eternal optimist, but even he knew that the First Order wouldn’t hesitate to kill him once they got what they wanted. The longer he held out, the longer he would live, and perhaps it would buy him enough time to escape.

He drifted for a bit, continuing to think of things that had never happened and things he had wanted even as he purposefully kept his mind off of BB-8, but in between these false recollections real things slid in. He remembered home, and how he had loved it there, even though he had not stayed; he thought of how foolish the Republic had been, letting the First Order grow so large, becoming a stagnant beast long before its time; he thought of Ben, of kissing him lazily under the starry skies of Yavin IV and of bold touches in the dark; he thought of Ben again, frustrated and distant and always with that darkening intensity.

He thought of the Jedi Temple, and of Han Solo’s cracked face as he explained with the eloquence of a man who hated diplomacy that there had been a massacre, and that Ben wasn’t coming home.

His eyes fluttered when the doors opened and he stirred from his bonds, baring his teeth when he saw who it was.

Kylo Ren moved like a predator, sure and strong and with a deadly grace that spoke of many kills, but when he moved his hands there was a strange hesitance that Poe hadn’t expected to see in someone no better than a trained killer. It was a weakness, whatever it was, but he didn’t know enough about Ren to exploit it. All he could do was hold out, and even if he died—when he died, for he had no control over that, only if he’d die an unwilling traitor to the cause he fought for—at least he would die knowing he had taken his secret to the fucking _grave_. He hoped Ren could see the hatred and disdain written on his face, and even though his body screamed at him to back down, to give the First Order what they wanted just to _end_ it all, he refused, hissing that the Resistance would _not be intimidated_. When he felt the first brutal intrusions into his mind he did all he could to block them out, throwing up image after image in an attempt to protect BB-8, conjuring walls and rivers and trees that reached out with gnarled branches to block Ren’s path, and when that failed he imagined sitting at the controls of his mother’s A-wing, jumping into a freezing river to save a boy he hadn’t even liked, and sitting with that same boy, years later, on the banks of that same river, listening to the water gurgle as Ben reached out and tried to see if he could command nature, too.

Ren tore them all down without mercy but he seemed to pause, however slightly, at the last one, and it left just enough time for Shara Bey’s voice to sound in Poe’s head, mixing together with the voices of the important people in his life—his parents, the General, Ben, his squad, BB-8, before Ren latched onto that last one and _pulled_ and _tore_ and Poe, Poe _screamed_.

\--        

His body was still vibrating when Ren stated that his usefulness had come to his end, and Poe would have laughed bitterly had he been in possession of his cognitive functions, but instead of an execution order (effectively immediately) Ren simply swept out of the room, leaving him to rot, and he was battling unconsciousness when a new presence announced himself, a stormtrooper who released him from his restraints and hustled him along, half-supporting and half-dragging Poe until he regained his footing, and then suddenly the stormtrooper was pushing him into a corridor, out of sight, and Poe spared a moment to wonder if he was about to die somewhat creatively even as he put his hands up defensively when the trooper pulled his helmet off, giving him some complete shit about it being the _right thing to do_ when Poe asked why he was helping him.

“You need a pilot,” Poe said, because even as he grinned he could see the desperation around the trooper’s eyes, the fear that had prompted him to pass the point of no return.

“I need a pilot,” the trooper admitted, and Poe laughed even as Shara Bey whispered _think fast, act faster_ in his mind, and so Poe hid his shaking hands and agreed because a slim chance was better than nothing, and even if this trooper was pulling his leg it was _something_ , and if there was a chance, any chance at all, that Poe could walk out of this alive he was damn well going to take it, and the next time he faced the First Order he’d do it with a cocky salute because Poe Dameron wasn’t an easy bastard to kill, and he almost wished he knew what Ren’s face looked like just so he could imagine the bastard’s look of rage when he found out Poe had escaped with the help of one of their own. So he followed the trooper to the hanger bay, kept his nerves under control even as he listened to the trooper mutter nervously under his breath, and when he slid into the cockpit of the TIE it was like coming home, albeit to a home that had been brutally and hideously rearranged. They escaped the hanger with shouts of joy and the trooper turned out to be a good gunner, enthusiastic and eager, and he asked the man’s name and gave him a new one in return, one that gave him worth beyond just an expendable number even as he remembered his objective. So sure, he turned towards Jakku because he needed the map. That had been his mission, to return that piece to the Resistance at all costs, something he was willing to kill and _die_ for, but there was also a part of him, desperate and animalistic as he pushed his body and mind through the pain of the last twenty-four hours to perform the impossible, that was returning for BB-8. Poe had promised him he’d return for him, had given his word, and the thought of BB-8 waiting and waiting only for Poe to never show made his heart ache. He’d lost too many friends, too many comrades; he was not about to lose BB-8, not when he could justify going back for him.

He felt the shot that crippled the ship and knew before Finn’s panicked words that it was a mortal one, but for a moment all he knew was _nothing_ , his vision fading to black as Finn yelled from the gunner’s seat. When he woke a few seconds later the TIE was screaming towards Jakku and he struggled to reorient his sluggish thoughts, hours of torture taking their toll on him. Still, he managed to pull the TIE out of its death spiral as they plummeted towards the surface of Jakku, to soften the blow of their landing, but the impact was jarring, making his body feel like it was on fire, and his head flew forward, connecting sharply with something. There was blood on his face and in his eyes and in his _mouth_ , and his panicked thoughts were that he had failed and, worse than that, that he had taken someone with him, a stranger who had trusted him, even as Poe moved to free himself from the cockpit and onto the hot sands of the planet’s surface, struggling out of his jacket as it caught on something sharp. All he knew was that he had to get away, though he couldn’t think about _why_ with the haze surrounding his thoughts.

The last thing Poe Dameron knew before oblivion was screaming and darkness and heat and the bitter taste of his own failure before blackness claimed him and he knew nothing at all.

\--        

Everything after that was a blur. He didn’t know how long he wandered, forcing himself to move as he struggled to remember even basic things about himself, his mission, anything. His head was screaming at him, every part of his body ached, and when he stood still his hands shook, something that made him curse. Even that was painful, however, as his throat decided to remind him how parched it was, but he pushed on because he could remember some things, like a promise to a friend, an _I’ll return for you_ sworn in a ring of death and destruction.

Eventually he was able to piece everything back together, but he didn’t allow himself to dwell on it. He had his name and his objective firmly in mind, and so he struggled through the sands searching for somebody, anybody, who might help him.

When he saw the approaching speeder, he almost wept with relief. He had no time for that, however, so instead he waved the driver down, blinking in surprise at the small Blarina that disembarked.

“Well, well,” the Blarina said, making an appreciative clicking noise as he scuttled around Poe with more speed than Poe would have thought such a small creature capable of. The Blarina adjusted its goggles. “I don’t find stuff like this everyday, no I don’t,” it continued, its voice a low hiss, grabbing Poe’s hand to examine it and resting its keen eyes on the few tools Poe had managed to retain. Poe raised an eyebrow, and the Blarina seemed to cackle. “Naka Iit,” it seemed to coo, “and you’re quite a find. Maybe I’ll just scavenge you myself.” The words were said in a joking tone but Poe knew that it was a very serious possibility, so he pushed the pain and exhaustion to the back of his mind, plastered a smile on his face, and assumed the regalia of the _best damned pilot in the galaxy_.

“I’m afraid I don’t have much worth stealing,” he said with more brightness than he felt. “Most everything went down with the TIE, see, when I was trying to escape the First Order, so I’d be much obliged if you were to give me a lift to the nearest town so I can return to the Resistance.”

The Blarina seemed to hiss in delight at that, a sound that Poe was able to identity as a cackle leaving its small body. “Oh, oh, that’s a good one,” Iit said, still laughing. “One of the best I’ve heard. Complete nonsense, but a little amusement can be hard to find out here.” Iit cackled again. “Just for that, I’ll be generous. You made me laugh, so I’ll give you a lift. Fair? Yes, yes. Fair.” He then held out a canteen, and Poe’s eyes widened as he took it gratefully, groaning as the cool water slid down his parched throat. He climbed onto the back of the speeder, where Naka Iit explained that he could take Poe to another Blarina named Ohn Gos in a town called Blowback, but because _nothing_ seemed liable to go Poe’s way it wasn’t long before they were being pursued, and by the distressed hiss Iit emitted Poe guessed they weren’t friends. When the first shots were fired, aimed to disable and not to kill, Poe swore.

“Give me the controls,” he said, only to be met with Iit’s startled refusal, and for a moment they wrestled over the controls until Poe was able to prevail, slowing the speeder and hissing at Iit to pretend to surrender before he tilted the nose of the speeder skyward, kicking it into full gear when their enemies were close enough, leaving them literally in the dust even as Iit shrieked in surprise, holding on for dear life as Poe whooped, feeling invigorated and in control for the first time since the massacre on Tuanul.

When they were safe on the route to Blowback, Iit’s small body producing a variety of pleased hissing noises, Poe let himself relax a little.

“Well, that was an unpleasant surprise for them,” Iit noted, sounding happier than Poe had ever heard him, though that wasn’t saying much. Poe winked.

“Just doing my job,” he quipped, and was met with more delighted hisses from the Blarina.

“I’ll make sure you get off Jakku to wherever you need to go,” Iit promised. “I’ll speak to Gos myself, and he’ll arrange it all.”

Poe smiled with gratitude, but it wasn’t until he was seated in a shuttle, beaten and bloody and exhausted with the planet D’Qar coming into sight, that he allowed himself to breathe out. He would return to the Resistance base on the planet, he would tell them what had happened, and together they would figure out how to proceed.

\--        

“Commander,” General Organa greeted warmly, a hint of relief in her voice, and Poe raised his hand to give her a tired but still cheeky wave, opening his mouth to tell her exactly what had happened, why BB-8 wasn’t with him, but suddenly it was as if his body had had enough, and the next thing Poe knew his legs were giving out on him and he collapsed into the arms of a quick-thinking lieutenant, his eyes rolling back in his head as the torture and the crash and the hours punishing his already abused and beaten body by wandering a desert finally caught up to him. There were voices around him calling for medical attention and he recognised the General’s among them, sharp and commanding and oddly comforting because it meant he had _made it_ , he hadn’t failed utterly, and there was still time for them to act, things they could do.

This time the last thing he remembered before blessed sleep was the sensation of hands on his face, soothing and reassuring, lulling him into unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's play a game of "spot the terrible KOTOR references." [flexes her Carth Onasi muscles]
> 
> Find me lurking on [tumblr](http://deadhabsburgs.tumblr.com/)! I love talking to people about my space gays.
> 
> Comments and feedback seriously make my life and contribute to the writing process <3


	3. air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You really don’t know,” Ren said, and it wasn’t a question. He laughed again, the sound muffled by his mask, and Poe tried not to pull against his restraints, tried not to give Ren a reaction, but he was tired and in pain and filled with so much anger and_ hatred, _and then Ren was reaching up and unclasping his mask, pulling it away from his face, and suddenly Poe was screaming, his head feeling like it was on fire as Ren worked his powers at the same time,_ betrayer, traitor, betrayer, betrayer, murderer.
> 
> Starkiller Base is destroyed, the Resistance victorious, and Poe learns that perhaps some people aren't quite as dead as he'd believed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five thousand words, because I have zero self control. I'd like to say another thank you for all the wonderful feedback I've been getting. This may not mean anything to anyone, but it's really been helping me with some other stuff I'm dealing with right now, and it's kept me sane when my anxiety decided to skyrocket. So, seriously, to anyone who has ever commented or _anything_ , just... thank you.
> 
> Special thanks to the wonderful [magic8ball331](http://archiveofourown.org/users/magic8ball331) for being a continuous source of support and encouragement as I stressed over this chapter. You're the best, babe <3

When Poe Dameron woke, it was to an ache that seemed to spread throughout his entire body. Everything _tingled_ , from his toes to his fingers and even the end of his _nose_ , and his first act of consciousness was to let out a vaguely pained whimper of curiosity, wondering why he wasn’t surrounded by sand, wondering where the stormtrooper— _Finn_ , he’d called him Finn, because no human being should be reduced to just a number—had gone and whether they’d been pulled to safety. Then the lights snapped on abruptly and he froze, his breath catching in his throat because this was the _Finalizer_ , and he wondered, in a moment of panic, if Finn had betrayed him, if the whole thing had been an elaborate ruse, but no, no, Finn would have stood to gain nothing and lose everything. Poe tried to move but his hands were restrained, his whole body was restrained, and it wasn’t like it had been the first time he’d been here, strapped to the torture rack. No, this time it was that full body paralysis that he had experienced on Jakku as the village burned around him, and _that_ , that alighted the panic in Poe’s mind, remembering that total immobilisation, and he tried to struggle, to break free, but his limbs _wouldn’t move_ and he could do _nothing,_ and Kylo Ren was there, hidden in the shadows, and—

—and he was missing something, he was _missing something_ , and as Kylo Ren reached out Poe tried to reach back, his face contorting in an expression of anger because there was _something there, something dark, something familiar_ in the way Ren’s hand shook, in the cadence of his breathing, and the way Ren suddenly stiffened and stepped back said he knew it as well. The next thing Poe knew Ren was turning around and marching out of the interrogation chamber as Poe screamed after him, hurling obscenity after obscenity: _murderer, assassin, scum, I will find out what you don’t want me to know, I will_ find you _, betrayer, betrayer, traitor, betrayer_ , and suddenly Ren stopped and turned around, his cruel laughter filling the otherwise empty room.

“You really don’t know,” Ren said, and it wasn’t a question. He laughed again, the sound muffled by his mask, and Poe tried not to pull against his restraints, tried not to give Ren a reaction, but he was tired and in pain and filled with so much anger and _hatred_ , and then Ren was reaching up and unclasping his mask, pulling it away from his face, and suddenly Poe was screaming, his head feeling like it was on fire as Ren worked his powers at the same time, _betrayer, traitor, betrayer, betrayer, murderer_.

He woke with one final scream, but the word forcing itself from his throat hadn’t been betrayer, or traitor, or murderer. No, the word Poe Dameron woke screaming had been much shorter, one syllable of pure agony that filled him with confusion and frustration and so much sadness that it hurt to breathe.

 _Ben_.

\--         

Pava gave him a shrewd look when he joined them in the mess the next morning, her dark hair piled on top of her head. Poe made sure to give her a wide smile, but he knew she wasn’t fooled by the way her brow furrowed, even though she was gracious enough not to comment. Two members of Red Squadron were milling about too, dark-skinned Bastian and the zabraki pilot Ondura carrying out a conversation in low voices.  Wexley and Asty were already in a midst of an argument when Poe dropped beside them, and they barely spared him a cursory glance as Wexley berated Asty for the umpteenth time on something every member of Blue Squadron had already tried ramming into Asty’s head.

“We’re a _team_ , not a support squad in your quest for eternal glory,” Wexley snapped, saving Poe the trouble of having to do it himself, but just as he thought he’d escaped their scrutiny Kun and Arana showed up, and Arana’s flat, _you look like shit, Dameron_ , was enough to break the spell.

“… Huh. You know, you totally do,” Wexley said thoughtfully. “Rough night, boss?”

Poe caught Arana’s eye and made sure to school his features into an expression that foretold death and pain in his near future. Arana had the decency to look vaguely apologetic, and Poe sighed, noting wryly that lying was out of the question, as he had it on authority that he was the world’s worst liar. Most of the time. He leaned back against the table as casually as he could, crossing one leg over his knee, his arm resting on the surface of the table.

“Just a rough sleep,” he said.

“Probably fell asleep with his tool belt again,” Kun cut in with a laugh, and Poe made sure to send her a grateful look when the others were distracted. He didn’t want to think of the nightmare, or of how he still woke with phantom pain sometimes, and he certainly didn’t want to think about Kylo Ren and the dark laugh that played at the corners of his mind when he let his guard down. More than anything, though, he didn’t want to think about how he had woke screaming Ben’s name, lashing out violently, and he just hoped no one else had heard or been woken by it.

He didn’t particularly want to explain why he was screaming the name of the General’s dead son, after all.

Luckily, Blue Squadron was chatty that morning, and Red Squadron were out surveying their X-wings as they all got ready for a patrol, so no one pushed. Kun and Arana set up camp at their table, prompting Pava to ask if they ever spent time with their own squads, and Poe tried not to feel the absence of BB-8 too greatly but his mind still wandered, wondering where the little droid was now, and if he was okay.  He hoped he was.

When he’d first opened his eyes, all those days ago, the first thing he’d seen had been the ceiling of the infirmary, the dimmed lights around him indicating the time of day—or, rather, night. His room had been empty, the hallways quiet, and Poe had spent a few moments stretching his limbs to ensure they weren’t strapped in place, relief flowing through his mind when he found they were not. His body’d ached, but it was nothing compared to the agony that had accompanied his last conscious memories, and he’d thanked the miracle that was bacta as he sat up, looping one arm around a drawn-up knee as he’d spent a few moments pulling his last recollections together. BB-8 had been nowhere present, and Poe had known, with a sinking feeling, that they hadn’t managed to retrieve the faithful droid yet.

A medi-droid—one of the 2-1B models, Poe’d noted with relief—had promptly appeared, calmly stating the damage his body had suffered and the treatments he’d received, as well as what to expect in the next few days. Bacta was an amazing thing, capable of repairing even nerve damage, but the body needed rest. Poe had just smiled, joking that the Resistance pilots never got rest, but he’d been interrupted by the arrival of General Organa, who’d looked tired, though her face had creased into a smile when she’d seen him up and talking.

He’d briefed her with a smile that was both relieved and worried, and her shoulders had slumped slightly when she told him it was good to see he’d made a full recovery, despite the setback of losing BB-8. Poe had remained silent as she described the events that had occurred after he dropped in a dead faint by the hangers—the slight mist in her eyes when she told him had been all he’d needed to know, and he’d felt both humbled and awed that she cared enough to worry, though there was guilt there, too.

Poe sighed, prompting Arana to ask, rather tentatively, if he was all right.

“Never better,” he said, blinking away the fog in his mind. “Guess I’m just missing the little guy a little.” There was no need to elaborate, and it wasn’t even a lie. BB-8’s absence was felt keenly, and Arana’s already sombre faced sobered up even more as he glanced at the space by Poe’s side that BB-8 normally would have occupied, something that made Poe feel momentarily, achingly lonely. He thought of Finn, too, and felt remorse pierce his heart as he thought of the crash over hot sand, of fire and screeching metal and death.

Finn had deserved better than that, and Poe had failed him.

“Sorry, mate,” Kun said, stroking her chin absently. “I’m sure they’ll find him. He’s a tough little guy.”

Poe, who was aware of Wexley and Pava’s intent stares, plastered a confident smile across his face that he knew they’d see right through. “Of course,” he said, pushing all thoughts of Finn and Kylo Ren’s grasping fingers from his mind. “BB-8’s the best unit in the galaxy. He knows we’re coming for him.”

After all, he’d promised BB-8 that he’d come back for him, and Poe Dameron never broke his promises.

\--         

As fate would have it—or perhaps the Force, Poe thought as he angled _Black One_ low over the trees, striking at the First Order with precise shots that had his squadron whooping in their cockpits—Poe didn’t have time to look for BB-8. The General had given them an urgent order and Red and Blue Squadron had suited up to obey it, priming their engines and setting out for Takodana, and if Poe had tried to make their entrance as dramatic as possible, well, it was because he was damn pleased to be back in the air again, actively doing something that would hinder the First Order and the dark bastards that headed it.

Later, when they were back on D’Qar and Poe heard a noise so familiar and so _missed_ that his heart had _ached_ , he thought about something that Ben had said when they were younger, about the Force working in mysterious ways, but those thoughts were promptly abandoned when BB-8 sped over to him and he was sure his face was fucking _shining_ with relief and happiness. Then he’d looked up and there, walking towards him, was the stormtrooper—Finn—and Poe had run forward and grabbed him in another display of aching relief, laughing as he noted his old jacket now sitting snugly on Finn’s frame. When Finn hurriedly offered to give it back something warm bloomed in Poe’s chest and he bit his lip, so fucking _happy_ in that moment that not even thoughts of Kylo Ren or the First Order could snap him out of it.

“Keep it,” he said, overjoyed that this man, this brave, brave man who had risked his life in an attempt to free them both, had survived after all. “It suits you.” Then Finn had asked him for a favour and there was a whirlwind of activity in the base as Poe escorted Finn to see the General, sure he was floating on air as BB-8 rolled happily next to them, everything he could have possibly wanted in that moment.

That evening, as Poe made his way back to his bunk, BB-8 rolling contently at his side ( _Force_ , it felt so right to have him there) and a plan of action firmly in his mind, he stopped dead as he saw a familiar lined face. Han Solo had aged, deep crevices etched into his skin, but then again, it wasn’t like Poe had stayed the same, either. He couldn’t help but think of the last time he’d seen Han Solo, fifteen years ago, watching that same face as Han tried to force himself to tell an eighteen-year-old Poe that Ben Organa was gone. They stared at each other for a moment before Poe raised his hand in a small, almost cheeky wave, belaying the sudden heaviness in his chest, but Han Solo merely sighed and gave him a quick wave back, adding in a nod for good measure before Poe continued on, the two of them passing like two freighters in the sky. Maybe he should have said something, but after so many years he wasn’t sure if there was anything he could’ve said, so instead he returned to his bunk, BB-8 beside him, and though his dreams were plagued with images of masked men and a touchless invasion that felt like fire, it was the first night he’d slept through since Jakku.

When he woke the next morning to BB-8 chirping insistently at his bedside, he smiled. The winds were changing, and as Poe raced to _Black One_ and saw Finn he didn’t even try to stop himself from reaching out and clapping the man on the shoulder, laughing when Wexley pointed out, rather knowingly, that Poe looked overly happy for a man about to try and blow up a planet.

“Haven’t you heard?” Poe said as he slipped his helmet on, activating the comm in his cockpit to make sure it was operating and watching with pride as BB-8 was loaded into position, “I’m the best damn pilot in the galaxy. Get your buckets ready, boys and girls, because we’re bringing back the frustrated tears of the First Order tonight.”

His declaration was met with a chorus of whoops as both Red and Blue Squadron readied their X-wings, bound for Starkiller Base. He knew, rationally, that not everyone would be coming back, so he spent a few moments just listening to everyone as they psyched up and talked, waiting for the General’s signal to move after the Millennium Falcon departed D’Qar.

“Better hope your boy comes through for us,” Wexley said from where he was perched on top of his X-wing, and Poe could hear the smirk on his face.

“He’s with _Han Solo_ and _Chewbacca_ ,” came Pava’s fond-but-irritated reply, “there’s no way they won’t have those shields down in time. Maybe your info is faulty, Snap. Ever thought of that?”

“No way,” Wexley said. “Dameron over there may be the best pilot, but I’m still one of the best recon guys we’ve got.” The banter continued for a few moments even as everyone hunkered down and readied themselves, and when the General at last gave them the all-clear Poe breathed out a sigh of relief. He knew that, even with a victory here, the First Order may not be totally destroyed, but he was willing to give his life—whatever it was worth—if it meant stopping the destruction of yet more systems and the loss of countless billions of lives. When they exited hyperspace and entered attack mode Poe prayed that the ground crew had been successful, trusting them implicitly to do what they had promised as he refocused his mind and became Black Leader, sparing one last thought for Finn and Solo and Chewbacca and his squad as Starkiller Base loomed closer. _Think fast, act faster_ , Shara Bey whispered, and as Poe primed his weapons he wondered if she would have been proud.

“All right, let’s light it up!”

\--         

That same day, when they returned flushed with victory and elation, Poe thought back to those moments before the planet’s explosion, thought back to his decision to disobey a direct order from the General to retreat as Starkiller Base began to break apart; his decision to remain behind to see if the Millennium Falcon had made it out all right. He didn’t regret it, not really, not when they’d all lost so much, but as he let himself be swept along with the victory crew he stopped and turned back to see the General and the girl, Rey, as they remained apart from the crowd. He couldn’t see the General’s face, but the slump in her shoulders told him all he needed to know, and the mother’s embrace she gave Rey said more than any words ever could. He spared a thought for those who hadn’t come back, and for Finn, critically wounded but stabilised with bacta, and he knew the victory had been worth the sacrifices, but he wondered just how much more the galaxy could take from the General. Her parents, her planet, her son, her brother, and now Solo—all gone, all lost to these endless wars.

Then he shook his head and turned back to Kun’s smiling face and the rest of his squad’s triumphant hoots, putting his own personal feelings aside. He did the General a disservice thinking like this, but as he let himself be pulled into a celebratory game of pazaak he thought about dying, broken legends and myths come back to life, and wondered when the Force or _whatever_ was out there would finally be satisfied.

Or if it ever would be.

\--         

“I’m leaving,” Rey announced as Poe wiped down the nose of _Black One_ , humming a low tune under his breath while BB-8 zoomed about to and fro. He wasn’t surprised. In fact, he’d figured she’d be the one to go as soon as R2 had woken up and supplied the rest of the map to Skywalker, but he was surprised to find her here when they had hardly spoken before now.

“When?” he asked curiously, wiping his forehead. BB-8 rolled contently over, stopping at her side with a pleased noise that made Poe smile.

“Couple days. I just—“ her brow furrowed intently and she gnashed her teeth, clearly unwilling to say anything more, and Poe, who didn’t know enough about her to fill in the blanks, was reduced to waiting while she fought past whatever was going on through her mind. “Finn,” she said at last. “He’ll be okay, right? What that monster did—“

“Hey, hey,” Poe said, feeling vaguely uneasy at the anger in his eyes, but at the same time understanding what she was getting at, and why it was hard for her to say. This girl was stronger than most of them, maybe almost as strong as the General, but she had difficulties like anyone else. If the gossip was correct, she’d lived on that hellish desert planet almost all her life and, powerful Force-user or not, she wasn’t just going to adjust to all this change in a heartbeat.

As it stood, he knew very well why she was worried. Finn had been floating in the bacta tank for days now as the thin, gelatinous substance healed the wounds to his damaged spine, and while Poe had seen people walk out of those tanks and regain full functionality he knew that Rey, growing up on a backwater planet like Jakku, wouldn’t have the same assurance. So he stepped up next to her and gently explained it, and when he was sure she wouldn’t reflexively strike him for trying, he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“He’ll get better, don’t worry.” He smiled again, for good measure, and she glared at him for a moment before forcing herself to relax and nod.

“I—good. Good. You’ll check up on him when I’m gone, in case he doesn’t wake up before I leave?”

“Sure thing,” Poe said, meaning it. It was no hardship, and besides, he owed Finn a great deal still, though he was sure that jacket was toast. She peered at him for a few more moments before her shoulders slumped and she sighed, bone-weary, glancing around as if to make sure everyone else was gone before she fixed him with an intense look that made his spine stiffen instinctively.

“Thought we were all goners. Finn was laying in the snow and that monster was still coming. He tried to read my mind, you know. Tried to reach in with his creepy fingers and pull it out.” She shuddered and Poe froze completely, his lungs abruptly seizing. “But then again,” she continued, “I suppose you know that. Which is why I’m telling you. No one else gets it.”

Poe swallowed the urge to ask how she knew about that. “Yeah. You have me beat in that department, though. Bastard got what he wanted from me.” He tapped the side of his head for emphasis and sent her another quick, albeit rueful, smile.

“Sorry,” Rey said, though her tone was awkward and almost brusque, coming off as vaguely insincere.  Poe knew she didn’t mean it that way so he just shrugged. “Can I ask you one more thing?”

“Shoot.”

“The General. She’s… she’s seen some stuff. You know, I always thought she was a legend. I thought they were all legends, but they bleed and die just like anyone else, and the General just keeps going. She lost her son, and then she lost her husband _to_ her son,” Rey said, and though her voice was quiet there was steel lining her expression, and in her eyes was a strange mixture of hatred and rage and _pain_ that was at once so familiar that Poe was thrown off-guard, his smile frozen on his face. He cleared his throat and shook his head, sliding his hands into his pockets before his mind caught up with what she had said.

“The General’s son is dead, has been for a long time,” he said, infusing his tone with a casual edge he did not feel as he eyed her. Rey gave him a searching look, one that seemed to strip him to the very bone, and he frowned. Whatever she was looking for she seemed to find it, saying a quick, “apparently not,” and then it was like she had opened the floor underneath his feet, and all he saw was water and sand and the almost silvery glint of a black mask before he managed to find his voice.

“What do you mean?”

“Kylo Ren,” she said. “They were setting the detonation packs, and then—Ren didn’t have his mask on, I asked him to take it off when he was trying to interrogate me and that _monster_ must’ve kept it off—Han _called out_ to him, called him by a different name, one that that bastard responded to, and asked him to come back, and Ren drew him in, said something we couldn’t hear, and then…” she broke off, her hands clenching at her sides as her mouth twisted in anger and Poe was momentarily struck with admiration for this brave girl, who had been strapped to the same chair as he, endured the same mind torture, and came out _on top_ while he had failed, “he killed him.”

Poe forced himself to breathe, but it was difficult when all he saw was black. “The name. What did he call him? Please,” he added desperately when he saw her frown at the crack in his voice, “I need to know.” After a beat of silence he added, “he tortured me, too. S’pose it would just help me get some kind of closure.”

Her face scrunched up, eyes flashing with a deadly edge, but she finally nodded. “Han called him _Ben,_ ” she said, and it was all Poe could do to excuse himself as the foundations of his rebuilt world crumbled around him. He was aware of Rey calling his name, stubbornly starting after him and demanding to know what was wrong, but whatever look she saw in the cracked edges of his frozen smile seemed to stop her in her tracks. They stared at each other for a moment before Poe forced out a laugh.

“Go see Finn. Please, just… go see him. For me,” he managed to say before he turned around, intent on heading back to his room, making sure to purposefully slow his steps to avoid anyone’s questions, raising a hand and waving with faux cheerfulness whenever anyone yelled out a greeting or a remark. BB-8 hurried after him, voicing concern through a sequence of rapid binary, but Poe just shook his head and kept walking, though he didn’t object when BB-8 stayed firmly by his side. When he got to his room he made sure to close the door gently and then suddenly that was _it_ , and he saw the way his face twisted into an almost inhuman look of anguish, but he refused to yell, refused to _scream_ like he had before, when he’d thought Ben had died and later when Kylo Ren— _Ben,_ it was Ben, it had been _Ben all along_ —had reached into his mind, brutally extracting the information he’d required like Poe was nothing. His vision blurred, his hands shook, and he could _feel_ the encroaching panic attack in the tingling of his body and way his chest began heaving, but he bit his tongue and stared at his expression in the mirror and thought of pure nothingness as he used old training to bring himself under control. When he was done he lifted his head and stared at himself in the mirror, taking in the haggard look on his face and the devastation in his eyes before he tried and failed to harden his expression, attempting to force a smile instead. He failed at that, too.

This changed nothing, he told himself. Ben Organa had died that day in the Jedi Temple, just as Poe knew he had, and a monster in a mask had stepped up to the galactic stage in his place. This new knowledge changed _nothing_ , he swore, even as he tried to correlate _his_ Ben with the creature who had torn apart his mind for information, uncaring of what he saw; the man who had manipulated and cut down his own father in cold, cold blood, as he had done to his fellow Jedi; the man who had once loved him and who had let him be tortured for what felt like days before he joined in himself.

The man who had hesitated when he'd seen Poe on Jakku and when he'd later glimpsed himself in Poe’s mind, and who had left him alive after finding the information he'd needed, despite the fact that Poe was no longer useful to them, and Poe had been too riddled with pain to question that then, only thinking about it days later when he’d been woken from his sleep by the memory of his own screams and failures.

Poe exhaled and sat down heavily on his bed, trying to smile as BB-8 made little _dwoo_ sounds of concern. He had wondered about it later, why Ren had left him alive when he had been of no more use (the First Order had known their location, they always had), and as he thought about Rey’s matter-of-fact statement and the anger brimming in her voice— _he called him Ben, Ben,_ Ben—he realised he had the answer to his question.

He almost wished he’d continued on in his ignorance, and he didn’t know what was worse: that the man who had once been Ben had willingly tortured him from behind a mask, or that the man who had once been Ben had _hesitated_ before doing so. Poe almost wished Kylo Ren had killed him outright, by his own hands, but he hadn’t. As a child Poe’s father had once told him to never start anything he wasn’t prepared to finish, so as Poe exited his bunk, intent on finding General Organa, he swore with every fibre in his body that he would make Kylo Ren and the First Order _rue_ the day they'd left Poe Dameron alive.

\--         

The dream returned that night. He was strapped to the torture rack on the _Finalizer_ , surrounded by strangers in white helmets and droids who were tasked with extracting every last secret from his unwilling body. Kylo Ren was there, too, tall and intimidating and shrouded in black from head to toe, but Poe conjured up a derisive sneer for him all the same, challenging him with bared, bloody teeth. He tried to move but he couldn’t, he _couldn’t_ , because he was strapped down and trapped but he would not betray the Resistance, he’d never betray the Resistance, and then Kylo Ren was _in his head_ but this time he wasn’t fishing for information about BB-8 or the Resistance or Skywalker. Instead he reached greedy, grasping fingers towards the image of two boys laying on the river bank, of a great tree blowing in the summer wind, of evenings spent laughing in the shadow of Shara Bey’s old A-wing. Ren paused at the image of Han Solo’s solemn hologram, the image of a father who had lost a son, and there he faltered, allowing Poe to gain a footing as he shouted and snarled and hissed that Kylo Ren would not have those memories, too.

“I will find you,” Poe gasped through the pain. “We will find you. We will end you.”

Kylo Ren laughed, the sound familiar in its cruelty as he reached for the mask covering his face, and this time, instead of waking up as he usually did, Kylo Ren stripped away the mask and it was _Ben_ staring back at him, Ben as Poe last remembered seeing him, his face pinched and desperate and full of youthful anger as he pushed Poe up against the old A-wing. He knew this was a dream, knew that in reality Ben’s face would look much older, reflecting the fifteen years that had passed, but that hardly mattered when it was still Ben under that mask, Ben pushing uncaring fingers into his mind, Ben giving the orders for the inhabitants of Tuanul to be slaughtered, Ben ordering that the whereabouts of the map piece be taken from Poe at all costs.

“Well, Poe Dameron,” Kylo Ren said in Ben’s voice, his mouth pulling into a pitiless smirk. “It seems you've succeeded.”

\--        

He must have looked particularly shitty the next day. He vaguely remembered snapping at Kun when she’d pointed it out in concern, and thankfully everyone had given him a wide berth after that. He'd resolved to feel guilty after it later when Rey had sought him out, and when he’d tried to snap at her, too, she had reacted with an angry expression and squared shoulders, refusing to be bullied into compliance. It shamed him a little, and he took a deep breath, biting out a low apology as he ran a hand through his already mussed hair.

“You going to tell me why you ran off like that now?” Rey asked shrewdly, and were Poe just a little meaner he might have snapped that it was no business of hers, but he knew, with a terrifying clarify, that it very much was, so he bit his lip in frustration and looked away, images of a black-cloaked figure in his mind as he thought of his ignorance, his failure, and ultimately, Rey’s triumph. He remembered the torture, the feeling of his mind betraying him, giving up its deepest, darkest secrets, and thought he never wanted to experience that again. Rey, though, Rey had been strong enough to withstand it, strong enough to fight back, and while he didn’t have her command over the Force she could help him construct walls, barriers, defences, anything he could use to buy himself time. The readings he had gone through last night, the ones detailing the mind techniques practiced during the Old Republic, told him it could be done, even by non-Force users.

Rey was looking at him with a frown on her face, waiting impatiently for him to answer. What she saw in him he did not know, but Poe looked back at her and saw a chance to ensure that his mind never betrayed him without a fight again.

“I need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made a couple tiny adjustments to some canon events, and tossed in even more terrible KOTOR references. For those who don't know, [bacta](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bacta) is that stuff Luke Skywalker was floating in during _Empire Strikes Back_ , following the wampa attack.
> 
> This fic is now going to be more than three chapters, despite my best efforts. How many it will end up being I'm not sure, but for now there is at least one or two more coming.
> 
> Your comments are my lifeblood and, as always, feel free to talk to me on my [tumblr](http://deadhabsburgs.tumblr.com/). I love geeking about Star Wars and the history of bacta vs. kolto.


	4. stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn wakes up, and the war brings Poe face-to-face with a shadow from the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait! I had papers and then I realised I had no idea where I was going with this. I still don't, but I'm getting better.

In the clichéd way of the stories Poe had read as a young boy, Finn woke up mere days after Rey left. Poe had been off base when it had happened, having flown out on a vanilla run with Red Squadron, but when he’d come back he and BB-8 had been met by a young lieutenant who had informed him, in a matter-of-fact tone, that “the stormtrooper” had woken up.

Poe had spared a moment to stress Finn’s name before turning to BB-8, wiggling his fingers as he asked whether BB-8 would like to see Finn with him. The high-pitched, rapid binary and the way BB-8 sped off was answer enough, and Poe laughed as he followed, waving briefly to the other members of Red Squadron, helmet tucked under his arm as he and BB-8 scuttled past the other people populating the base, intent on reaching the medbay.

Finn was sitting on one of the beds when they got there, holding his arm out as one of the 2-1B models injected something. Poe didn’t even have to force a smile, one coming naturally for what felt like the first time in days, and when Finn looked up and saw him there his eyes seemed to light from within. Poe laughed, entering the room with a small bit of swagger, grinning as he pulled up one of the nearby chairs and spun it around, sitting with his arms propped up on the chair’s back.

“Good to see you up, buddy,” he said warmly as BB-8 rolled happily by Finn’s leg. He hoped Finn could hear the sincerity in his words. Finn grinned.

“Good to see you survived. Again.”

“What can I say?” Poe said with a shrug. “I’m a hard bastard to kill.”

Finn’s grin acquired a relieved edge, though it turned into a wince as the droid prodded at the new, tender skin on his back. “Easy,” he whinged at the 2-1B unit, though he was smiling as he said it and Poe couldn’t help but wonder how happiness seemed to come so easily to him, and how someone so _good_ could have survived this war when it seemed like it was trying to take every scrap of integrity and light from them.

Then again, maybe his happiness didn’t come so readily, and Finn was just better at controlling his face than Poe himself was. Maybe it was a requirement for stormtroopers to be good face-to-face liars. Poe didn’t know.

He was starting to find that he didn’t know a lot of things.

Exhaling, Poe reached out and rested one hand on Finn’s bare shoulder, knowing his relief was probably obvious on his face but finding himself unable to care in that moment. Finn blinked at him in surprise, but after a beat he smiled, and Poe smiled back before removing his hand and letting it dangle at his side by where BB-8 still hovered.  He stepped back when Finn’s eyes moved the droid and widened with glee, a laugh startling from the ex-trooper's chest, which resulted in the medidroid chastising him for moving. Poe just smiled as he watched BB-8 whir and beep happily, something warm and soft unfurling in his chest at the scene, but when Finn’s eyes lifted and looked beyond him expectantly Poe sobered a bit.

“She’s all right,” Poe was quick to reassure when Finn’s eyes acquired a slightly panicked edge.   “She went to find Master Skywalker.”

Disappointment flickered across Finn’s face—that and perhaps sadness—and Poe bit his lip, wishing Rey could have stayed for this, but for the moment she was gone and there was nothing that could be done for it.

“Have I missed anything else?” Finn asked after a moment, resting a dark hand on top of BB-8’s head when the droid butted his leg demandingly.

“Well,” Poe said, shifting in his chair, “as you may have figured, the plan worked. Mostly.”

They spent a couple hours sitting together, chatting until the medidroid all but banished Poe, claiming that Finn needed his rest. It didn’t even relent when BB-8 directed the most pleading noises Poe had ever heard at it, so he pushed himself out of the chair, briefly stretching out the kinks in his back while BB-8 _dwoo’d_ sadly.

“Don’t worry, buddy, we’ll come back,” Poe told the droid, and was rewarded with a happy sequence of binary as Finn lay back down, smiling sheepishly.

“I think I ruined your jacket,” he said then, right before yawning. “I—I am sorry about that.”

Poe spared a moment of thought for that jacket, which had seen him through thick and thin, but in the end he only smiled and shook his head.

“It’s just a jacket,” he said, “and I’d rather have you back than it.”

\--     

“When do you think she’ll be back?” Finn asked a few weeks later as they sat in the mess hall, the chatter of Blue and Red Squadron surrounding them as everyone decompressed from their latest run. The First Order may have suffered a setback but they were still a threat, and they would be foolish to ignore them now, something Poe had been worried about. He ought to have known the General would’ve thought of that, though, and his admiration for her had only grown over time. Starkiller Base was but one part of a many-headed serpent, much like the colubri from his home planet, and they’d have to strike at its heart before they could truly relax, even a little.

Poe paused, lifting his head from the vaguely noodle-like substance he’d been shoving into his mouth, then shook his head. “Haven’t a clue,” he said at last. “Soon, maybe.”

Finn just nodded, a thoughtful look on his face. “Bet she’ll come back wicked kickass,” he said, voice filled with admiration as he continued, “you should have seen her. We went to rescue her and there she was, rescuing herself. Didn’t even need us, I’d wager, but I—“ he broke off and looked down at his hands. “I couldn’t risk leaving her behind.”

The longing in Finn’s voice struck a chord somewhere deep inside Poe, somewhere that _hurt_ , and his hands stilled as a result, utensil halfway to his mouth as abrupt images slammed into his head because he _knew_ that tone of voice, knew it so well it made his head spin, even if one of the last times he’d heard it had been far too long ago.

 _“You’ve gotten so much better at this_ ,” his younger self murmured as Ben pressed his bare back into the grass, the sounds of the river and Ben’s breathing filling the air. His hand traced absent circles on Ben’s skin as the taller boy huffed, dark and sweaty curls hanging in his face, curls that Poe brushed aside with a soft smile as they lay beside each other on the riverbank, their only cover being the shade provided by the trees.

 _“I have to return to the temple soon,”_ Ben said, disturbing the silence. Poe shifted, tucking his face against Ben’s shoulder.

 _“Stay,_ ” he whispered with all the sense of a seventeen-year-old.

 _“I can’t_ ,” Ben said, _“but I’ll come back,_ ” and in his voice was that same longing, but Poe was abruptly pulled from his thoughts by Finn, who was waving a concerned hand in front of his face. Poe blinked, trying to clear his head, and Finn grinned, the expression tinged with relief.

“Welcome back,” he said. “You all right?”

“Never better,” Poe said, mouth moving on autopilot as his brain struggled to correlate Ben in his memories with—well. He suddenly felt sick. “Just remembered something, is all.”

“Something bad? You looked kind of…” Finn frowned.

“Like you’d gotten your hand caught in a beam-splitter,” Pava offered lightly. “Come to think of it, you look kind of pale. You all right, Dameron? The food wasn’t _too_ bad today, you know. Much better than some of the reg shit the New Republic fed people, or so I hear.”

“I’m fine,” Poe said with a smile that he hoped didn’t look too forced, but his gut was churning and he suddenly felt the need to escape, the overlapping voices in the room becoming momentarily overwhelming. He did his best to stamp that out. “Think I just ate too fast. Lesson of the day: avoid the noodles, boys and girls.” The declaration was met with a few chuckles, and Finn launched into another story about Rey and their escape from Jakku, which Poe had likely heard already but wasn’t about to comment on. It was a welcome distraction, but as he fought down the churning in his gut and the guilt and the shame and the _anger_ that now accompanied thoughts of Ben he wondered when he’d become so good at deflection.

\--                

Sometimes, when darkness blanketed D’Qar’s tall trees, Poe’s thoughts drew him from his bed, setting his feet on the old forest paths that were both familiar and not. On these nights he would walk until he could hear the rush of water, so similar and yet somehow too different, and he would look at the river, so much larger than the one on Yavin, and wonder where it had all gone wrong, and if there’d been something he’d failed to do that had made this all possible.

\--      

In the months that passed Finn got healthier, the Resistance got stronger, and Poe, well, Poe got better at avoiding the things he didn’t want to think about. He thought he did, anyway. Sure, there were times when he’d catch Pava or Wexley or one of his old friends looking at him in concern, but they never said anything so Poe counted that as a victory, and over time the knowledge of who Kylo Ren was became not _accepted_ but more manageable. In the end, though, it didn’t really matter who Kylo Ren had once been, did it? The First Order was still out there, crippled without the use of Starkiller Base but still more than capable of posing a threat, and the Resistance trained to meet them at every step. After the destruction of the Hosnian system what remained of the New Republic’s resources had been redirected and channelled into their cause, and the flood of new assets was gratifying, but the galaxy was still reeling from the loss of Hosnian Prime and all those who had perished on its surface, and Poe wondered grimly if the First Order had had the last laugh after all. At least the systems loyal to the New Republic had opened their eyes at last, pledging their voices to the fight, united in their horror of what the First Order had wrought without provocation.

It was almost too little too late, Poe thought as he watched Blue and Red Squadron scramble into their X-wing fighters, gearing up to respond to a distress call one of their allies had sent all the way from Onderon. Though he knew many members of the New Republic had been sympathetic to them, providing them with resources on the sly—such as Poe’s beloved _Black One_ —it hadn’t been enough, and the Chancellor had been deaf to the General’s words. If the New Republic had just listened when they’d been warned then perhaps billions of people would not have needed to _die_.

And that was the tragedy of it all, was it not—the fact that this hadn’t come as a surprise. There had been plenty of warnings, plenty of signs, all of which the New Republic had chosen to ignore. He cast his thoughts back to Major Deso and wondered, briefly, if his old CO was still alive. He, too, had ignored the signs, the warnings Poe had brought back, just as the Senate had ignored and slandered the General when she’d spoken similar warnings.

He wanted to mourn the New Republic, he thought as he climbed into the cockpit of _Black One_ , looking back to see if BB-8 was strapped in tight, and he did mourn them, but part of him couldn’t help but think that it had been a death of their own choosing.

\--                

It took Poe longer than he would have liked for his squads to reach the skies over Onderon, but they were still quick enough to give the First Order a nasty surprise when they dropped out of hyperspace in attack formation, laser cannons blazing. The First Order was quick to retaliate, however, and soon Poe was dodging enemy cannons as he and his squad zipped about, lending their fire to the efforts of the native Onderonians, whose crafts also filled the sky, fighting for their freedom in a way they had done so many times before.

Normally, Poe thought somewhat guiltily as he dodged the determined efforts of one of the TIEs, they may not have bothered. The Resistance was still growing and they did not have the resources to answer every distress call levelled at them, but Onderon, with its location within the Inner Rim, was considered crucial enough to help defend, and the fierce people on the planet could only be a boon to them. They couldn’t afford to let the key planets fall, not now, not when the New Republic’s heart had been so thoroughly destroyed.

“Squint on your left, Black Leader!” Pava shouted, and Poe turned his X-wing just in time to avoid damage from the TIE’s blaster cannons as Pava’s X-wing swooped in, landing a direct hit.

“On your right, Commander!” came Asty’s sharp warning, and Poe cursed as he banked, trying to pull _Black One_ up and around as two other enemy starfighters joined the first.

“BB-8, man the blaster cannon!” Poe ordered as a hailstorm of lasers rained around them. “Prepare to open fire!” Then he pushed forward on the throttle and held his breath as _Black One_ dove down before he abruptly switched gears, manoeuvring his craft so that he could face his opponents head-on. He fired one of the concussion missiles and didn’t even wait for the cloud of proton particles to scatter before he and BB-8 fired again, taking out two of the enemy TIEs before one of the Onderonian crafts swooped in to nip the third.

“Shit, Dameron, what’d you do to piss ‘em off so bad?” Wexley laughed over the comm as Poe grinned, the euphoria and adrenaline that always came from flying filling him, and he laughed until BB-8 trilled an alarm in his ear, one that made him look over his shoulder. His eyes widened when he saw the three crafts trying to slip away from the heat of battle, and when his eyes landed on the sleek, updated shuttle he knew, he just _knew_ , and with haste he called out to his squad.

“Red Squadron,” he called, his voice sharp. “Priority target—don’t let that shuttle make the jump to hyperspace!”

“Red Two here,” Bastian’s voice replied, crackling to life over the comm. “On it, Black Leader.”

He didn’t know why they were here, and he almost didn’t care. All he did was thank the Force or _whatever_ that the General had had enough foresight to send them out here as he directed the full of his attention to firing on the shuttle and its guards, as he watched one of the Red Squadron X-wings go up in an explosion of fire and light ( _Red Three, Elise Ondura_ ), and as he watched that same shuttle careen down down _down_ , the living on board doing their damndest to ensure the ship survived the crash onto the planet’s surface as Bastian’s red-rimmed X-wing chased after it, firing until Poe told him to hold, directing his squad to land immediately on the planet’s surface. He radioed the Resistance, telling them what had transpired and requesting a small prisoner transport—small, but capable of maybe, just maybe, holding a Jedi.

“They’re retreating,” Pava said over the comm, and Poe smiled grimly.

“Of course they are,” he said. “We just took out their leader, and there’s no true loyalty among the First Order.”

\--      

Onderon’s long history was filled with civil war after civil war, so it was hardly a surprise when Blue and what remained of Red Squadron landed to find a contingent of Onderonian fighters already waiting for them, clothing caked with dust.

“Thank you for coming,” the woman leading them said, thrusting out her hand, her marked face pulling into a hard frown. Poe shook her hand briefly, trying to smile. “We were afraid our message would not get through, but Senator Riiken—“ she broke off and smiled grimly. “Well. We are grateful for your timely aid. I am Pulchra Bonteri. My men have already began stripping the wrecks for supplies and intelligence, but the last ship you shot down…” She smirked. With the scar that pulled at her upper lip, however, it looked more like a grimace. “I’ll waste no more time telling you. My men are trying to put out the blaze, but further help is welcome.” Then she turned and Poe directed his squadmates to follow, promising BB-8 that he would be back.

When he approached the burning shuttle, he thought his lungs might freeze, despite the heat. His mind reached back, back to the sands of Jakku, back to stumbling out of the downed TIE, his head pounding and his ears ringing. Some stormtroopers were crawling out of the wreckage, their hands up, tearing their distinctive helmets off to reveal their individual faces. Others were being carried out by their comrades or by members of Bonteri’s squad, and just as Wexley whistled and opened his mouth to comment Poe took off, diving into the burning wreck despite the alarmed calls of his teammate, searching for the one person he had been so _sure_ was on-board, despite having no real reason to believe it was possible; that the universe would be so cruel.

Kylo Ren was slumped against the control panel in the cockpit when Poe found him, pinned under the weight of what once may have been the pilot, his clothing singed and his body still. Poe coughed, the heat of the flames burning his lungs, and he cursed himself for not utilising his flight suit’s capabilities before rushing in, but there was no time for that now.

With deft hands Poe hauled the pilot’s corpse off Ren’s prone form, hissing as he slid one hand under the mask to press his fingers against the pulse point. It was there, beating faintly, and so Poe hauled Ren’s body towards the exit, pausing only when he saw something laying under the remnants of the pilot’s chair—a lightsaber, cross-hilted, that he scooped up after a moment’s hesitation, attaching it to his belt as he tried not to think about it. Then he focused all his energy on pulling Ren out of there, and he barely registered when Pava pushed her way in and joined him, lending her strength to his as they pulled Ren free of the shuttlecraft and out into the dusty-fresh air of Onderon.

“We got him,” Pava said, her voice breathless with disbelief as they scrambled back from the limp figure. Around them the rest of his squad and Bonteri’s men worked, pulling other figures and supplies out of the wreckage before they stepped back, satisfied that they’d salvaged all they could from the burning craft. “That’s Kylo Ren. We got him.”

There was nothing threatening about Kylo Ren the way he was now, splayed out on the ground, the mask still covering his face. Nothing threatening, nothing _familiar_ , and yet Poe’s head still hurt and his breathing still accelerated, and he was glad for the privacy his own helmet provided as he knelt next to the still figure, careful not to touch, but oddly protective all the same, if only because his sense of justice demanded that Ren be made to understand all he had done, all he had wrought upon the galaxy.

Even so, he had to carefully remove his hand from the hilt of his blaster and breathe in, his teeth clenching with the effort. When his fingers brushed the metal hilt of Ren’s lightsaber, still where Poe had secured it, he thought he’d forget how to exhale.

“Sir, that’s the last of them!” Wexley shouted, his face red with exertion as he pulled his helmet off, standing over the body of a prone stormtrooper. The other captives knelt in a circle where Bonteri’s men had blaster rifles pointed at them, their hands up. When Poe looked over he caught one of them glaring at him, her expression full of loathing.

“Good,” Poe said, standing. “There’s a transport on the way. Check to see who else is breathing, then—“ he broke off, struggling for a moment, part of him wanting to just get rid of them all now, while they couldn’t fight back or cause problems down the line, and his finger itched to be on the trigger of his blaster as he glanced down at Kylo Ren but he thought of Finn and _no_ , he couldn’t. It wasn’t his call to make, and he had to be better than his base urges.

Better than the First Order.

"—then keep them close and watch them until the transports arrive.”

For whatever reason, Kylo Ren had left him alive after the events on the _Finalizer_ , even though it would have been easy, so easy, to just have him killed. He did not pretend to know Ren’s reasoning, if the man had thought Poe might be of further use to them or if there had been a part of Ben who had seen an old friend and _hesitated_ , but then he thought of Han Solo and told himself not to be silly. In the end he wasn’t sure he wanted to know why Kylo Ren had left him alive. It was enough that he had, and so Poe owed him the same courtesy, for the man he had once been and for his importance to the General if nothing else.

He ignored the twinge in his chest as he thought that, just as he ignored memories of a hesitant smile and a sharp laugh and the rushing rivers on Yavin IV. Kylo Ren was nothing to him now, he told himself firmly. Kylo Ren had never been _anything_ to him.

But Ben Organa had been something.

He forced himself to look at Ren’s still body, his mouth pulled into a grimace. “Let’s hope he doesn’t wake up anytime soon,” he said. “He could be burned pretty bad.”

“Let’s hope,” Pava said fiercely. “Bastard deserves it.”

Poe looked at Ren’s body a beat more, then turned away with a wry laugh. “You’re not wrong. Lieutenant Bastian,” he called as the dark-skinned man wandered by, “see if Bonteri’s men have any cuffs or, if we're lucky, a neural disruptor—if he wakes up before the transport gets here I want to make sure he’s limited in his means of escape.”

“Sir,” Bastian said in acknowledgement, moving to do so.

It felt odd, giving orders on the ground like this when he was far more used to giving them where they couldn’t see his face. Giving orders to a faceless audience was easier, because all he had to control was his voice. Poe had never been good at controlling his face, and he found he was supremely grateful for the helmet.

“Wonder what’s under the mask,” Pava mused, pushing strands of hair out of her face as she looked down at Ren. Poe followed her gaze, thinking of wavy dark hair and pale skin and dark eyes, then he removed his own helmet and tucked it under his arm, turning away.

“A man,” Poe said flatly. “Nothing more."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- A "Squint" was one of the nicknames the Rebel Alliance had for the TIE Interceptor. I've made it carry over.  
> \- "Senator Riiken" is the world’s worst reference to Captain Riiken in _Knights of the Old Republic 2_. He was a Royalist soldier loyal to Queen Talia.  
>  \- I was rewatching an episode of _The Clone Wars_ while writing this and thought, "it's not inconceivable that Lux Bonteri would have descendants." And so, meet his descendants.
> 
> Please let me know what you think ♥ Comments seriously keep me inspired (and help me compute how many people are actually reading this and how much time I should devote to this or other projects).
> 
> I also have a [tumblr](http://deadhabsburgs.tumblr.com/)!


	5. water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The squad copes with the death of Red Three and Poe Dameron confronts a ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has an end goal and a full outline now. Prepare for pain. I'm also done messing with the summary now that I've found a direction.

They managed to get Kylo Ren to D’Qar with a combination of sedatives, a neural disruptor, and sheer dumb luck, but even Poe’s love of flying couldn’t rid the tension from his shoulders or the slight strain in his voice that he did his best to hide, and the journey back had seemed to take far too long.

He was sure the medics who’d sat in the heavily modified Resistance transport shuttle with an unconscious Kylo Ren had been thinking the same thing.

Poe didn’t even bother taking off his helmet as he climbed out of _Black One_ , pausing only to ensure BB-8’s safe descent as he moved to the grounded transport. He wasn’t surprised to see the General there—had counted on it, in fact—but if she was surprised to see him taking such a vested interest in their newfound prisoners she didn’t comment. Poe doubted she was paying attention to him anyway, not when, in a few moments, the medics would be unknowingly transporting her son’s unconscious body down to medbay.

The captured stormtroopers were probably just background noise to her. Poe knew they were to him. He barely noticed when the rest of his squad arrived, barely noticed that he was still seeing the world through the orange lenses attached to his flight helmet, barely noticed anything but the hiss of the transport door as it opened, revealing a contingent of Resistance guardsmen, the captive ‘troopers, and a bunch of very relieved looking men and women surrounding a gravstretcher containing the very still form of the man Poe had once known as Ben Organa.

By the sudden intake of air beside him, he knew the General was thinking the same thing, and it was enough to snap Poe out of it, suddenly noticing just how large the gathered crowd was becoming.

It seemed news travelled fast, and he supposed it wasn’t every day that they had such a prestigious prisoner. Poe grimaced at the thought, eyes straying to the armed Resistance guardsmen as they marched the three disarmed ‘troopers away, and Poe wondered what would happen to them. They couldn’t very well just let them go if they refused to cooperate, after all. Then his mind returned to the crowd, to Kylo Ren, and to the General, who was looking at her son’s body with unguarded emotion in her eyes. He closed his eyes and turned to address the people gathered around them, the ones hoping for a glance of the fabled Force-user.

“What are you looking at, you lot?” Poe said, barely keeping the snappy edge from his voice. He removed his helmet, tucking it under his arm, and was aware of BB-8 hovering at his side, a curious pillar of support. “Let’s give everyone some room here.”

The crowd grumbled but they headed off, sneaking surreptitious glances at the retreating gravstretcher as it made its way to medbay, the General walking briskly, professionally, beside it.

“They know how dangerous he is, right?” a familiar voice asked, and Poe almost jumped when Finn hesitantly laid a hand on his shoulder, as if he wasn’t sure the contact was permitted. When Poe didn’t shrug it off Finn gave him another pat. It was oddly comforting. Beside Poe, BB-8 beeped happily, and Finn gave the droid a little grin.

“She knows,” Poe said before clearing his throat, concerned with how scratchy the words had sounded. “She’s dealt with Force-users before.”

“Yeah,” Finn said, but Poe noticed he wasn’t looking after the General anymore but rather in the direction the captured ‘troopers had been taken. Poe’s heart went out to him even as he remembered the complete and utter professionalism with which he had taken out Finn’s brethren on Jakku. He wondered if Finn knew about that, about how many Poe had killed and how unrepentant he had been about it.

How unrepentant he still was as he soundlessly counted the heads of his squad, his chest aching when he came up one short.

“We should go,” Poe said then, forcing a smile onto his face. Finn turned, blinking somewhat owlishly, and Poe chuckled, slinging an arm around his shoulder in a gesture that implied a more carefree mood than he currently felt. “No point in lingering out here like a couple of idiots, and I need to get out of this suit.” He let his arm drop, turning to walk towards the room he’d been afforded as the commander of two of the Resistance’s best fighter squads, but he stopped after noticing that Finn was still standing there, his eyes once more trained on the direction the stormtroopers had gone.

“Hey,” Poe said before he could stop himself, and Finn turned to look at him with a disconcertingly blank look. “They’ll be fine. Hell, if you ask the General, she might even let you talk to them. Make it convincing. They won’t be treated badly.” The words almost hurt as images of the _Finalizer_ flickered through Poe’s mind, of dark corridors and faceless weapons, but the way Finn’s face seemed to crumple in relief made them worth saying.

“Yeah,” Finn repeated, finally turning away. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

\-- 

According to the gossip, Kylo Ren’s injuries were largely minimal. A few burns ranging in severity, which Poe had expected, and a fractured clavicle, which he hadn’t, but it made sense—Ren must have hit the console harder than Poe had thought, and the weight of the dead pilot landing on him, as well as Poe and Pava’s inexpert tugging, probably hadn’t helped. The gossip also said that, when Ren had first woken, he’d almost crushed the windpipe of the man working on repairing some of his more severe burns, and that they’d had to heavily sedate him as a result.

 _It’s good in the long run, though,_ the clinical part of Poe’s brain whispered. _Makes it harder to run_.

He pushed those thoughts firmly aside, focusing instead on cleaning BB-8. With professional medical care, he doubted Ren would be in danger from that fracture for long, and it wasn’t as if bone-knitters were hard to get a hold of. It was the personnel of the base itself that would have to watch out once he was healed and Poe wondered, not for the first time since their return, if it simply would have been better to leave Ren there, to let him burn in the wreckage of his own craft.

His mind said yes. The rest of him wasn’t so sure.

“All good, buddy?” Poe murmured as he placed one hand against BB-8’s shiny metal plating, and he was rewarded with an affirmative beep as BB-8 practically vibrated under his touch, seemingly enjoying the attention. It made Poe smile, however faint, and he wondered what he had done to deserve the absolute loyalty this droid felt towards him.

“You have a mind of your own,” Poe told the droid fondly, sitting back and resting his head against the wall of the room he called his own. “Dreaming big in there?”

If BB-8 could’ve huffed, Poe suspected he would have heard it after that question. As droids were incapable of breathing, however, the way BB-8 rolled back and forth in one place got the point across sufficiently. Poe chuckled, letting his eyes fall shut, his arms resting lazily against half- drawn-up knees as he tried to remind himself that peaceful moments like this were good and deserved.

After a few moments of breathing BB-8 _dwoo’d_ carefully at him as if asking, _all right_?

Poe exhaled softly, keeping his eyes closed, purposefully avoiding thoughts pertaining to the captive Force-user in the Resistance medbay.

“Yeah, buddy, I’m all right,” he said, and he wondered how many times he’d have to repeat that before it felt like less of a lie.

\-- 

“They used to tell the most obscene stories about him,” Finn said the next day as Blue Squadron and the remaining members of Red Squadron clustered in one of the rec rooms, their faces subdued as they all did their best to avoid looking at the spot their lost pilot, Elise Ondura, would have filled prior to the skirmish over Onderon.

It made Poe appreciate Finn’s attempts to distract them, even if the subject matter made him want to beat a hasty retreat.

“Who?” Bastian queried from his spot in one of the plush single chairs, his voice soft and low, blinking out of his reverie. Beside him, Gerak Finch, the third member of Red Squadron, snorted.

“Kylo Ren, you idiot,” he muttered, though the usual bite in his voice was toned down. Even Asty was less obnoxious than usual, for which Poe was supremely grateful.

“Oh,” Bastian said. He then raised an eyebrow and Poe, across from Bastian and on the floor next to BB-8, thought he saw a spark of mean curiosity in the set of the other man’s mouth, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared, if it had even been there at all. One could never tell with Bastian.

“Gotta hear this,” Asty grumbled as Wexley leaned forward, a shit-eating grin on his face. Pava, standing behind the plush bench, huffed, but she looked just as interested.

“No one’s ever seen his face,” Finn started, “or that’s what they said. I suspect General Hux probably has, but—“ he grimaced “—I doubt anyone was brave enough to ask.”

“Hux? The Starkiller?” Pava queried. The room tensed as everyone thought of the Hosnian system. Finn nodded with a quick _I suppose so_ , his eyes straying briefly to Poe, who gazed back steadily until Finn continued. Poe drew his knees halfway up and draped his arms lazily around them, legs crossing at the ankles.

“Anyway, there were wild theories that went through the ranks about what he looked under the mask. I remember Slip—“ and there Finn’s voice faltered and Poe’s eyes snapped up to his face as Red and Blue Squadron seemed to shift, some looking discomfited at the reminder that there were people under those eerie white helmets “—Slip once theorised that Lord Ren was a droid underneath those robes. Nines called bullshit, though. Said he was _obviously_ a hutt, and then Zero asked what a hutt even was. I remember hearing someone else say that they thought Lord Ren was a female twi’lek, but I’m pretty sure that was just wistful thinking.”

“Imagine though,” Finch said dreamily, leaning back against the bench with his hands behind his head. Poe’s shoulders tensed. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

Pava groaned. “Ugh, you’re so predictable,” she said, disgust in her voice. Finn grinned.

“Gotta say, I’m a bit partial to that theory too,” Asty said, looking smug. Pava gave Wexley a pointed look and Wexley, from his spot between Asty and Finch on the bench, gave Asty a light punch to the stomach. Asty glared. Wexley just shrugged.

“No way,” Pava said. “Have you _heard_ about how powerful he is? _He_ ,” she said, putting emphasis on the pronoun, “must be a Miraluka.”

“Miraluka?” asked Finn from his perch on bench’s armrest. Poe wondered why Finn was indulging them—after all, from what Poe knew from Rey, Finn had seen Ren's face.

“Aren’t Miraluka those Force-sensitive humanoids with no eyes?” Bastian said, frowning.

“There’s no way Kylo Ren doesn’t have eyes,” Finn said, leaping back into the conversation, looking animated and alive in a way that made Poe’s heart warm, even as the rest of him froze solid.

“Doesn’t he wear a mask? We’d _never know_ ,” Pava argued.

“Female twi’lek. Rutian, maybe,” Finch continued, as if he hadn’t heard Pava and Finn at all.

“Maybe he’s _Sith_ ,” Wexley said, leaning in with a conspiratorial whisper. “I know they say the species died out eons ago, but _what if_?”

“He’s not Sith,” Poe said flatly, surprising himself, and instantly six heads snapped in his direction, caught off-guard by his tone. Poe cursed mentally but kept his posture lazy. “Everyone knows true Sith haven’t been seen in over three millennia.”

“Well, their beliefs have sure stuck,” Pava said dryly. Poe hid his grimace.

“He’s not Sith,” he repeated harshly, defensively, even as his instincts screamed at him to _shut up_ , to keep his opinions to himself. Even Finn was looking at him oddly now, struck by the vehemence in Poe’s tone, and Poe abruptly wished Kun or Arana were here, if only so they could direct the attention away from him.

“What do you think then, Commander?” Bastian asked, and Poe knew he wasn’t imagining the sharpness in the other man’s eyes this time. Poe sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, finally letting his legs slide to the floor.

“Maybe he’s normal,” Poe said, shrugging awkwardly. He needed a drink. “Maybe he just looks like one of those everyday guys you’d see on the streets of any given major planet. He’s been in medbay this whole time. Go see for yourself.”

There was a pregnant pause after that as they all looked at him, Bastian’s dark eyes harsh and considering while Finn’s looked more concerned and apologetic. Finch wasn’t even listening, lost in his fantasies, while Wexley’s face was oddly blank. Pava had one eyebrow raised, and she mouthed _Miraluka_ to Finn over Wexley’s head.

“That sure is boring, boss,” Wexley said at last, breaking the strange silence, and Poe could barely contain his relief as the conversation resumed, every member of Red and Blue Squadron—plus Finn, who seemed to have been adopted into their little circle—trying to argue their point over the other.

No one noticed when Poe inched away and slid out of the room, not even BB-8.

\-- 

Kylo Ren had been awake for days. Poe knew this as fact, for he had done his best to avoid going anywhere near medbay since the man had been confined there, swearing that he could feel a phantom itch against his mind every time he drew too close. He also knew, by the tight set of the General’s face, that Ren’s awakening hadn’t brought with it good tidings.

What he didn’t know, as he left the rec room behind him, was why his feet were currently taking him in Ren’s direction, why the pulsing anger in his chest suddenly felt so insistent, why it was demanding he see Kylo Ren _now_ after days and days of complete apathy.

(That was a lie. He knew why, even as he thought of his squad, laughing in the rec room, coming up with obscene theories for what lay beneath Kylo Ren’s robes in order to distract themselves from Ondura's death. He didn’t blame them, he couldn’t, they didn’t _know_ , and Poe wasn’t about to tell them, not in a million years, because telling them would mean facing it, owning up to it, and Ben Organa was none of their damn business. It wasn’t _anyone’s_ damn business.)

He stopped for a moment, one hand flying out to grip the corner of the wall beside him, and he breathed out harshly in an attempt to clear the anger from his mind, making his shoulders relax as a wave of forced calm washed over him. When he felt in control again, the façade of a commander draping over him like a shroud, he pushed forward, intent on reaching medbay. He didn’t know why he was going, what he expected to see, but he had to—he _had to_ —

He had to pause and rid himself of the blaster pistol that hung on his belt, and he knew what it said about him, that he felt he had no choice.

\-- 

The scar was new. Jagged and red, it stretched diagonally across Kylo Ren’s face, helping to mar features that otherwise might’ve seemed familiar, and Poe found himself oddly grateful for its existence. It made it easier to separate Kylo Ren from Ben Organa, easier to avoid subconscious comparisons in the shape of Ren’s eyes and his brow, easier to not remember that mouth smirking with amusement instead of malice, kissing him on a warm summer’s day. The eyes were harder to ignore, just as dark as Poe remembered, but there was a cruel, mocking glint to them that hadn’t been as prevalent in their younger days, reminding Poe that, wherever Ben Organa was, it wasn’t here.

“Come to visit the lone prisoner?” Kylo Ren murmured, arching one brow in a fallacy of calm from where he sat upright and shackled to his bed, but Poe could see the way Ren’s hands clenched into fists and the tightness in his shoulders. He wasn’t fooled.

“You’re hardly our lone prisoner,” Poe said, as if he hadn’t been raging in the hallway only moments ago. He noticed the lack of a neural disruptor around Ren’s neck and tried to push down the surge of alarm, reminding himself that the General knew what she was doing. “Bit of a lucky go, really, taking down Kylo Ren’s shuttle with minimal casualties. I’m one hell of a shot. Maybe I just came to gloat.”

“Liar. Why else would you be here?”

Poe leaned back against the wall casually, crossing his ankles and arms. “Why would I lie? Maybe I’m just the kind of guy who wants to rub it all in. My escape, our victory, your loss and capture—nice scar, by the way, really sells the whole ‘Dark Lord’ look. It’s new, right? Must suck seeing it, though, a little reminder of your failure staring back at you in every reflective surface on a daily basis.”

Kylo Ren’s face hardened and _there_ was the familiar spark of anger, barely contained. Ben Organa would have punched him by now. Poe wondered if Kylo Ren would have, too, were he able to reach him, or if even that part of Ben was gone.

“I know why you’re here. You’re seeing if there’s anything left of _him_.”

“No.”

“You forget that I know all about you,” was the reply, Ren’s voice dropping into a mocking tone as he lifted shackled hands to tap the side of his head. “I’ve seen him in your mind. I’ve seen your memories, your feelings. I know _everything_ _about you_.”

“You don’t know _anything_ about me anymore, _Kylo Ren_ ,” Poe said, putting emphasis on the man’s chosen name, and though Poe was smiling there was something dangerous and angry in his voice. “It’s been nearly sixteen years. Do you think I just sat around and mourned him all that time? Do you think I wouldn’t have changed?”

Ren was silent at that, his dark eyes sharp as they processed every word, and then he said, with a soft, smug assurance that made Poe want to punch him in the nose, “But you did mourn me. Him.”

Poe snorted. “Of course I did,” he said flatly. “Do you think I’m a monster? Ben was my best friend. My oldest friend.”

“Your first love,” observed the creature wearing an older version of Ben’s face. Poe shrugged, running a hand through his hair, not missing the way Kylo Ren’s eyes seemed to track every movement he made. To what end, he wasn’t sure, though he thought he could guess. After all, he’d done much the same when Ren—who sat still and placid, though Poe knew that was only because he was forced to, could see the strain that staying motionless presented—had interrogated him, using the Force to enter Poe’s mind and forcefully extract that which was not his to claim. At the thought, Poe started to recite a list of upgrades he wanted to add to _Black One_.

“Yeah, he was,” came the simple reply. _Yeah, you were_ , he did not say, because he would not believe this man was Ben, and he wasn’t going to waste time pleading to someone who likely no longer existed, even if he could still see aspects of Ben in this man, from the slope of his nose to the forced assurance of his movements. But if his Ben had been cracked at the edges, bits of him leaking out at the corners as the years passed, this man was _shattered_ , and Poe wondered if it was even possible for pieces of his Ben to remain at all with so many wounds bleeding so freely. After all, he’d watched Kylo Ren cut down an innocent old man in cold blood—had heard, later, of the order to slaughter all the survivors of Tuanul.

Had experienced, by Kylo Ren’s hand, an inhuman pain that had left him shaking inside, convinced for weeks that his mind was no longer his own, that anyone could just come strolling in when they pleased.

“You love me still,” Ren observed, dropping his voice, roughening it from the smooth, smug drawl he’d been affecting, and for a moment he was almost Ben, but the knowing glint in his eyes gave him away. “Do you see nothing in me worth saving? Nothing worth helping?”

“Maybe I loved you once, long ago on a little forest moon, but now? If it were up to me,” Poe said slowly, careful to enunciate every word, “you would not have left that ship alive.” The lie hurt. “On Jakku—“ and he saw Ren’s face twitch at the mention of the planet, but he pressed on “—I fired my weapon to kill. If you were to send me back, knowing who you once were…” He laughed, short and bitter. He thought about Leia, who had lost everything to the dark side, and he wanted to tell Ren exactly what he’d done to his mother, but that would do nothing. Ren didn’t deserve to hear anything about his mother; didn’t deserve the faith she had had that he could be saved; didn’t deserve her strength. “I think I’d still pull that trigger. I spent years grieving you and _moving on_. It’s little presumptuous of you to think I would’ve kept carrying that torch. Cute,” he said, as patronisingly as possible, the same voice he’d once used on Ben after Ben did something stupid, hoping somewhere deep inside himself that Kylo Ren would recognise it and _hurt_ , “but stupid.”

Something seemed to snap in Ren as Poe said those words, for suddenly the carefully maintained illusion of calm was gone and he was lunging forward, pulling at his restraints, his face twisted into an angry snarl.

“I should have killed you,” he shouted, and Poe was distantly aware of the lights flickering around them, of how the machines pumping sedatives into Ren’s body shook dangerously, the only thing holding his Force powers in check, though by the looks of things it hadn’t been nearly enough. “I hate you,” Ren snarled as Poe took a step back, never breaking eye contact, and he could feel a familiar pressure against his mind, something that made his breath quicken even as the room began to shake around them. He tried to remember the engine sequences, tried to bring them to the forefront of his head, but all he could do was watch as Ren tried to wrench himself from his bonds, his face a cracked mask of pain and _hatred_. “You don’t understand. _None_ of you understand what it’s like, being torn, knowing you’re never good enough, never strong enough, the torture and weakness of being unable to shed that last bit of humanity, having that voice in your _head_ —”

“Torture?” Poe barked out, startled into a reply he hadn’t planned on giving. “ _This_ isn’t torture.” He was angry now, angry that he had spent fifteen years mourning a ghost that hadn’t been a ghost, angry that that ghost had come back and done his best to destroy one of the strongest people Poe had ever known, angry that Leia Organa had endured so much suffering at the hands of her own family, angry that Kylo Ren _dared_ to think this was at all comparable to the horror he had wrought upon the galaxy; for the deaths he had caused.

Drawing on the leadership qualities he possessed, Poe pushed through the red haze, letting it turn cold, and he dropped the walls Rey had helped him construct, stopped the constant recitation of binary and engine sequences looping through his mind, and let himself _remember_ , dredging up the memories of Jakku and Yavin IV and of Han Solo’s cracked face and Leia’s solemn one and of the tearing _pain_ that had followed Kylo Ren’s interrogation of him, and when he felt that invasive touch again he threw all those memories up, reciting them like Rey had taught him to recite the engine sequences, until Ren was backing out, a livid howl of rage leaving his throat. _Good_ , Poe thought savagely, even as one of the machines exploded and Poe had to shield himself from the debris, feeling the glass cut into his hands and parts of his exposed arms.

“I may not know what the Force is, what dark side is, what it feels like,” Poe spat in the aftermath as the sound of footsteps signalling the arrival medics and armed Resistance guards sounded down the hallway, “but I know torture, I know choice, I know unwanted voices _in my head_ , and no amount of power is worth what you have done; the pain you have caused. Humanity isn’t weakness, and getting rid of it isn’t strength. You’re _weak_ , Kylo Ren, and in your weakness you have failed to realise that Ben Organa was damn stronger than you _ever were_.” The doors burst open then, personnel flooding the room and doing their best to sedate Ren, who merely hissed in a guttural language as one of the armed guards commed the General. Poe let himself be herded out after that, abruptly reminded of his own imprisonment as he watched one of Ren’s hands strain at the cuffs, barely hearing the words of the lieutenant who was speaking to him, waving off their offers to check his injuries. He knew he had to get out of there, knew he had to retreat before the sickness in his heart overwhelmed him completely, and as he turned around and walked briskly out of medbay his mind flickered back to Ren’s mocking query, the question of whether Kylo Ren was worth fighting for; whether there was anything left of Ben worth saving.

Poe was only mildly disturbed to find that he wasn’t sure there was.

\--

The General found him later that night, perched on the nose of _Black One_ , his knees against his chest.

“I didn’t know,” she said in the gloom, her voice weary but always, always, with that note of steel that made the General who she was, someone worthy of as much admiration as Poe held for Shara Bey, and then some. Poe couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised at her presence, or at her declaration. He’d figured she’d have been briefed on the altercation, even if he’d wondered whether she would come to the correct conclusion, but Ben had always said that Force-users could feel strong emotions, and Poe knew he’d probably been screaming his out with enough force that even a neophyte Padawan would’ve heard them.

With the adrenaline out of his system now, however, all he felt was numbness, and he had spent the better part of an hour berating himself for his rashness. Kylo Ren could have easily killed him at any point during their conversation, had probably planned on it at one point, and Poe was just grateful that Ren had enough of Ben Organa left in him to retain that same directionless temper.

Or maybe it was just a new dark side technique.

He sighed, dropping his head to his knees. “How could you have?” They’d never tried to hide it, after all, but they also hadn’t been open about it. Ben hadn’t wanted his parents to know, had wanted something that was just _theirs_ , but Poe had declared, at an early age, that he wasn’t about to be someone’s dirty secret, so they’d compromised, back when Ben had still been capable of such a thing. They wouldn’t tell, but they wouldn’t lie if they were discovered.

“I used to think that mothers just knew these things about their children. Mine always seemed to, but I’m not sure I knew Ben as well I thought I did, and I failed him as a result,” the General said, but her voice had softened, losing some of its edge, and when Poe glanced at her he saw the strength that made her what she was, that kept her going, but also the sadness that followed her like a shroud. In that moment she ceased to be _the General_ and instead became _Leia Organa_ , the woman who’d once berated him and Ben for beating each other with their kid-sized fist. Right now it seemed an impossible memory, though, and Poe tried to smile but the expression was cracked, bleeding out involuntary memories. Leia looked out to the horizon.

“We were away so much, Han and I. We were never there for him, and then we sent him away when he needed us most.” She paused then, sighing deeply, the sound of the bone-weary. “That may have been our biggest failure, and one I will never forgive myself for. We may as well have handed him to Snoke on a silver platter.”

“Snoke?” Poe questioned, the name unfamiliar to him. Leia just smiled sadly. “There are worse beings out there than my son, Commander. Powerful, terrible beings that hide in the shadows and gather endless strings to them, and I’m afraid Han and I drove Ben into the arms of such a being. I told you I wasn’t a legend. I’ve made mistakes, and some of them have cost me… Well. More than I ever thought I’d have to pay.” Poe blinked, and he wanted to ask more about this being, this shadow, but Leia’s face was tight and sad and he didn’t think he could handle seeing her shatter, not after what had happened with Kylo Ren, so he refrained from asking.

“I’m sorry, Poe,” she said after another beat of silence, and that, _that_ more than anything made the situation seem absurd. Within the last few months he had been tortured within an inch of his life, only to escape and rejoin the Resistance in striking a crippling blow against the First Order. He’d found out that Ben was alive in the same moment he’d discovered that Ben was _Kylo Ren_ , the man responsible for millions of deaths across the galaxy, and then, with his squads, they’d managed to cripple Ren’s personal ship, leaving the darksider at their mercy. Yet with all that the strangest thing by far, in that moment, was Leia Organa actually apologising to _him_ , and he couldn’t help the small, sad laugh that left him, which prompted an inquisitive look from Leia.

The funny thing was, he didn’t blame her at all—at least not for her decision to withhold Kylo Ren’s identity from him. Maybe he should have, and were he fifteen years younger he definitely would have, but at thirty-three all he could summon was a bone-weary understanding. Even if she’d known of the relationship he thought she and Han would’ve made the same decision, and he was self-aware enough to know that it was the best one in a series of hard choices. By not telling him what Ben had done, by telling him that Ben was dead, they had allowed him to _move on_ , to do something else with his life, and maybe he came out of the ordeal more cracked than before but he had also come out stronger, more determined, without the regret and the self-blame he knew must have haunted Han and Leia for nearly two decades. It had been a gift, being able to move past it all, even if it had made the ultimate reveal all the more difficult to bear.

“No. Thank _you_ ,” Poe said, and if he were in a better mindset he might’ve delighted more in the expression of confusion that crossed Leia's face, a rare thing, but a welcome reminder than she was human. “For not telling me,” he clarified. He let the silence hang for a moment, then rubbed his face with his hand and sighed. “You let me live my life, y’know? I mourned him, but I moved on. So thank you.”

Her face filled with understanding then, and she gave him a small nod and an even smaller smile, and he wondered if his words had helped lift the burden from her shoulders, just a little—one less regret to add to the pile.

“How do you deal with it?” Poe blurted out as she turned to leave, knowing she would understand what he was asking, and he watched her as she stopped, watched as her shoulders moved with her breathing. He couldn’t see her face now, but he admired the strength within her all the same; wished he could take even a fraction of it for himself.

“You pick yourself up and you move on,” she said at last, speaking words that Poe would forever etch into his bones, “for that is the burden of leadership.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Of Red Squadron, only Lieutenant Bastian is a canon member (though due to the lack of info on him beyond a vague appearance description I've made up his personality). Gerak Finch and the deceased Elise Ondura are both original characters. Of Blue Squadron, I pulled their names from the Star Wars wiki, though it was announced that Asty was one of the pilots who died attacking Starkiller after this chapter was posted. As a result, pretend he's still alive.  
> \- Nines, Zero, and Slip were the other members of Finn's squad. Slip was one of the stormtroopers Poe killed on Jakku.
> 
> Please let me know what you think! I treasure your comments always, and this chapter was a small milestone, so I'd love to know your thoughts.
> 
> I also have a [tumblr](http://benamidalaas.tumblr.com/) c:


	6. thorns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren never needed the Force to get into Poe Dameron’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there everyone! So, first off, I'm sorry for the wait. This past month has been sheer hell with the amount of way-too-long papers I've had to write, as well as the cooled response plus some other things that happened a couple weeks ago that temporarily killed my ability to write. As it is my friend had to practically bully me into posting this chapter (because I hate it, my god do I hate it) but I managed to get it (hopefully) tidied and ready to go, so here it is. Next chapter may take awhile as I am now devoting my energy to finishing my fic for the benpoe exchange. It's my first priority given that it has a deadline. I apologise in advance.

Poe wasn’t surprised when they put Kylo Ren in a force cage, and he was equally unsurprised when he heard that Ren had tried to escape within the first few minutes, as if he could force his way through an electric field with brute strength alone. Poe didn’t seek him out, though. After the confrontation his thoughts were too jumbled, refusing to give him a moment of peace, and so he had fled, doing his best to outrun Kylo Ren and the man he had once been, throwing himself into his work, into building up the Resistance however he could.

His squadrons were smaller now, after Starkiller, smaller than he’d ever seen them, and it was like a punch in the gut every time he saw their diminished numbers. It made the anger smoulder in his chest, the ever-present ache he was sure every leader felt when their troops died under their command, but whereas before he’d had something to channel his anger into now there was _nothing_ , nothing immediate he could do, no mission he could take on, and so he trained his body, his mind, ensuring what remained of his squads were prepared to do the same. The First Order had retreated to lick their wounds, as the Resistance was nursing theirs, neither side ready to face each other as they dealt with the devastating blows they had each been dealt, but it wouldn’t do to fall behind, to let this momentary lapse in action make them lazy and unprepared.

Poe hoped the First Order was smarting just a little bit more, though, now that Kylo Ren was a Resistance prisoner.

“Hell _yes_!” Finn shouted, and Poe blinked, refocusing his attention on the other man and the target he’d hit head-on. Poe whistled lowly, mouth quirking into a grin. Finn’s excitement was always infectious.

“Nice job, buddy,” he said, sliding his sniper blaster rifle off his shoulder as BB-8’s head swivelled to watch them. The sniper was different from the one he’d used on Jakku, but the basic model was the same, and it only took him a few seconds to take down the set targets with military precision, even though they were programmed to move. BB-8 whirred with approval, but Finn was looking at him with an oddly serious expression, dark eyes trained on Poe’s hands as if he could see something Poe could not, and it wasn’t until Poe raised an eyebrow and brought his hand to his face for inspection that Finn blinked and smiled.

“Putting my record to shame, Poe?” he asked. Poe huffed.

“Hard when I don’t know it.”

“Trust me, I’m way better with a blaster than I am with a lightsaber.” Finn made a face at whatever memory he was experiencing. Poe wondered if Finn would have tried to trace the scar Kylo Ren’s lightsaber had left, had it been more accessible.

“I don’t doubt it,” Poe said, and it was nice, this distraction, this baseless banter between companions as they all tried to pretend they weren’t anxiously awaiting the First Order’s next move, as if Finn didn’t spend large portions of his day watching the skies above D’Qar for any sign of that familiar ship and the extraordinary girl he’d braved Starkiller Base for; the friend he couldn’t bear to leave behind. The thought made Poe soften for a moment, remembering Finn’s urgency when he had asked Poe for his help, for a favour, fresh out of hell and still worried for the scavenger girl who had changed everything. He wondered if Finn knew what it was he was feeling; if he knew how bright he shined when he talked about Rey. Poe wondered if his own face had once been that bright when he’d talked about Ben, but he dismissed the thought with a grimace. He hadn’t ever talked about Ben, not even back then, and then when Ben was gone opening up had seemed moot.

Sighing, he refocused his thoughts on Finn and Rey. Anything was better than the anger he found he could not rid himself of, the anger that had gradually come to replace the gutted feeling he’d had after his talk with the General.

“Hey Finn,” Poe said with false calm, and Finn glanced over, his hands moving in an absent gesture that made Poe want to smile. Nothing about Finn was ever still, not truly, and he wondered if that was a recent development or if it was something that had always been part of him. “Before Starkiller—“ then he broke off, unsure of what he’d been meaning to ask. _Before Starkiller, had you ever seen Kylo Ren’s face? Before Starkiller, what did you think of him? Had you ever had any contact? Had anyone, besides that general you mentioned?_

Poe tried to clear his throat, to summon saliva to wet the inside of his suddenly dry mouth as the questions surged up and _stuck_ , until all that remained were the words _before Starkiller_ , circling over and over and over in his mind. _Before Starkiller, he was nothing to me. Before Starkiller, he was Kylo Ren. Before Starkiller, before Starkiller, before Starkiller_.

“Never mind,” Poe said after a moment, shaking his head, carrying the weight of Finn’s confused gaze for a few more moments before he said, with a casual edge he did not feel, “let’s eat. I’m starving.”

\--

“So Kylo Ren’s human,” Pava said with a sigh as she wiped blue paint from the tip of her nose, surveying her handiwork on her X-wing. “Disappointing.”

Poe hummed from his spot on the tarmac, resting his hand on the back of BB-8’s rotund outer casing as he watched Blue Squadron work. “Yup,” he said dispassionately. Wexley’s eyes were heavy on him. “Disappointing.”

\--

“Rey didn’t kill him. I think I would have,” Finn said, firing his blaster like it was an extension of his arm, his injuries healed enough that they no longer impeded his movements.

Poe watched him carefully, suddenly feeling all of his thirty-three years as he looked at this young man, so bright and full of life, raised for a war he’d never wanted to fight. _Children. We’re fighting this war on the backs of children._ “You wouldn’t have,” he said.

The words sounded heavy. Poe knew them to be true.

\--

Luke Skywalker hadn’t continued the tradition of the Padawan braid. Something about it being a relic of old times, Ben had told him once, when Poe had asked why he didn’t have one like the old holorecords described.

“If I did,” Ben had said seriously, cocking his head to the side, “I would have given it to you when I cut it. It’s supposed to be a great honour, and then you’d always have something to remember me by.”

Poe had smiled, leaning forward to kiss this brilliant fifteen-year-old, saying he didn’t need anything to remember Ben by. “Because I love you,” he’d said, “and I’ll love you even when the stars go out.”

One month later, wrapped in his father’s arms as Han Solo’s uncharacteristically solemn hologram told him Ben was gone, he’d wished Ben had given him that braid after all.

\--

He avoided Ren for two weeks, but it wasn’t easy. Everywhere he went he heard people whispering, snide comments behind open palms as they speculated and reviled and condemned, and even the innocent rumours made him grit his teeth as people assigned supernatural abilities to Ren that Poe knew no Force-user could possess.

General Organa had been with him when he’d overheard a particularly ridiculous theory, and her pinched face had been the only thing that kept him from snapping at the offending lieutenants. Later, when he had apologised to her on their behalf, she had only smiled that sad but steely smile of hers and shook her head.

“I appreciate the sentiment, Poe,” she’d said, “but it’s only to be expected. They don’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way a little longer, if only—“ she’d broken off with a shrug. “I’m sure you can guess.”

He could. While the rumours were ridiculous, the fear they created was all too real, and while this could work against them in the future it was a weapon they could use in the present. The fear would keep people away from Ren, volatile and locked up, guarded by electric fields and cut off from the Force by a small shipment containing two lizards between thirty and fifty centimetres—ysalamiri, renowned by those in the know for their ability to create a Force-neutral zone of about ten metres per lizard, rendering Kylo Ren incapable of using the Force from inside his prison.

It wasn’t hard to summon sympathy for the General, doing what she could to protect her son even as she locked him away, knowing all too well how dangerous Ren was and what he was capable of. After Han Solo’s death—well, they’d known not to count on any familial ties where Ren was concerned.

Poe exhaled through his nose at the thought, his mind conjuring up images of the last time he had seen Han Solo himself, his face cracked and aged through hardship and loss, so much older than the distorted hologram that had marked Poe’s last sighting of him before that. Then his thoughts turned to seeing Kylo Ren again all those years later, body slumped over in a burning craft, helpless and at his mercy while Poe stood above him.

He thought of how easy it would have been to claim Ren was dead and leave him there, to pull the trigger and ensure Ren could never harm anyone again, and part of him was horrified— _you’re better than that, Dameron_ , it whispered, even as Poe laughed lowly and hissed back _no, I’m not_ —but the other part shouted _yes_ at him, _yes, kill him, get rid of him, and you’ll never have to suffer his presence again_. Those thoughts were the most terrifying ones, coming to him in the dead of night when all he could see behind closed eyes was Ren’s outstretched hand and that cold, emotionless mask as he tore through Poe’s mind. It made him glad his weapons were out of reach. They were supposed to be the good guys, Poe thought fiercely. They were above this. If they were to kill a helpless prisoner in cold blood, what would that make them?

 _Effective. Victorious_ , the tactician part of his brain whispered, the one that ensured he always pulled the trigger without hesitation. _Free_.

Then he thought of the General and he pushed those thoughts far, far away, chaining them up and sealing them behind the most heavily fortified walls in his mind where no one, _no one_ would ever know they’d been seriously considered. The rage was still there, though, bubbling beneath the surface, making Poe’s finger itch for a trigger even as he smiled and laughed with his squad, and he found it was all too easy to hold onto that anger, to convince himself that he needed to, until one day in the mess when he heard something that made his blood run cold.

“They should just poison his food,” one of the fighters, a yellow twi’lek, hissed to her companions. “Say it was an accident. Save everyone the trouble. My friend, Tanis, one of the guys who brings him the food, said he seriously considered it. It’s not like anyone would miss him.”

The words, spoken more out of youthful spite than genuine malice, shouldn’t have gotten to him, and the fact that they did was hypocritical, but immediately after hearing it he’d excused himself from the mess, waving away Finn’s concern and BB-8’s confused binary as he walked away with an easy stride that masked the sudden fear that had gripped his chest, because what if, _what if_ —

 _It didn’t matter_ , the tactician whispered. _It would be better for everyone if what that girl said were to come to pass_. But it did matter, it mattered so much that for a moment Poe felt as though he couldn’t _breathe_ even as his mind screamed that this was not his Ben, that Kylo Ren was nothing, a mere monster in the dark.

It shouldn’t matter, Poe thought tersely as he walked, the echo of his footsteps lost amidst the low chatter of the guards in the makeshift prison block. Kylo Ren was Ben Organa as much as Luke Skywalker was Darth Vader, even if he had to force himself to remember that every time he thought of Ren’s face, his newly scarred visage blending all too easily into the memories of that tall, passionate boy from Yavin IV. _It shouldn’t matter_ , but it did, and that was why Poe found himself standing next to the door of D’Qar’s small cell block only a few moments later, exchanging a brief nod with the surprised guard, who eyed him with a star-struck gaze that Poe was becoming more and more accustomed to as he wordlessly allowed Poe access to the room.

Concerning, Poe thought with a sickening sort of dread, how the guard hadn’t even questioned him or his intentions, but he had little time to think on that. Perhaps the General had ordered them to allowed him access.

Kylo Ren sat on the floor of his cell, legs crossed, head bowed, swathed in dark robes sans belt and separated from Poe by a crackling yellow field of contained electricity. If it weren’t for the way his body stiffened when Poe entered Poe might have thought him deadened by the meditation he was so clearly attempting. For a moment, Poe felt disoriented, like something was missing, but he pushed that aside.

“I see they’re letting anybody in now,” Ren said, his voice rough. He pulled himself to his feet in one fluid motion, careful not to touch the edges of the cage, not that he was in danger of doing so—the cage, circular, had a diameter of at least three metres, a lot larger than Poe thought he’d be afforded, with bedding tucked away to one side. “How quaint.”

Poe’s eyes narrowed. “Easy. I could be here to strangle you for all you know.” He immediately wanted to take the words back, thinking of the girl in the mess, but Ren only snorted, and Poe’s gaze was drawn to the scar that stretched across his face.

“You could try. Excuse me for not shaking hands. The field only causes mild electrical burns.” Ren held up his hand as he spoke, pulling off one dark glove, revealing a vicious red burn that stood out against his pale skin, even with the colour distortion from the force cage. Poe grimaced despite himself, but the strange panic that had been unfurling in his chest had started to dissipate once he saw Ren was still breathing, and he didn’t want to think about what that meant.

Ren shifted, watching him with the eyes of a predator. “What do you want, pilot?” he said. “Come to gloat again, or are you still convinced your childhood sweetheart is rooting around up here?” He tapped the side of his head and smirked nastily. Poe’s hackles rose. “You’re not afraid our little discussion will end like the last one? Or—” his voice lowered, low, threatening, and Poe felt his body react to the danger in the shift of his shoulders and the sudden proximity of his hand to the hip where his weapon usually lay “—like the time before that?”

Poe snorted, despite the flare of anger in his chest, and Ren’s eyes snapped to his mouth. “I’m not,” Poe said, infusing a bit of mirth into his voice. “Worried, that is. See these?” he said, gesturing to the two small lizard habitats placed on opposite sides of Ren’s cage. “Ysalamiri. I assume you know what they do by this point.” By the glare Ren directed at him, he was well aware of the effects of the lizard, but only a fool would dismiss Kylo Ren as a threat simply because he’d been stripped of the Force.

Effective weapons could kill with anything. Poe knew that better than most.

“So then why are you here?” Ren demanded, and Poe could hear the impatience leaking into his voice. He grimaced and Ren clenched his fists, drawing himself up to his full height, prowling to the edge of the cage, easily towering over Poe. Poe met his gaze calmly, and he wondered what Ren saw when he looked at him—if he saw the still-healing scars on Poe’s face and felt any regret for ordering them. The most frightening monsters were the ones who had once been men, but with the distortion from the force cage it was hard to look into Ren’s eyes and see just how much of the man remained.

“Do you really care?” Poe asked bluntly, dropping all the acts, folding his arms over his chest. To his surprise Ren seemed to be genuinely considering his answer, tilting his head to the side, but he gave a short, curt nod, his body radiating tension, and Poe wondered how much of that tension stemmed from being cut off from the Force as he was. He was willing to bet most of it was.

He decided to go with the truth. Caged like this Ren was but a blunt and imprecise tool, like he had once been a blunt and imprecise boy, stripped of the exactitude his command of the Force gave him. There was nothing to be gained from lying to him.

“I’m making sure you aren’t dead.”

He wasn’t expecting Ren to _laugh_ , the sound instantly making Poe’s shoulders tense. It wasn’t a pleasant sound, cracked and bitter and utterly devoid of mirth, but it was laughter all the same, and Poe watched carefully as Ren withdrew from the edge of the force field, retreating to a spot far away from Poe.

“Don’t pretend like you care, Dameron,” Ren said lowly, his back to Poe but his head tilted to that Poe could see his mouth as he spoke. “I could be convulsing on the floor and there would be a part of you relishing in it. You think I’m not aware of how much easier it would be were I dead?” A sneer, almost self-deprecating in nature. “You successfully avoided me for weeks and you’re only crawling back now to chase away the stench of your own guilt.” When Poe froze Ren rounded on him again, a cruel twist to his mouth as he stalked back to stand as close to Poe as he could, their bodies separated only by a glowing wall of translucent yellow. He wondered if Ren would have tried to touch him without it. “You think I don’t know? You think that, even without the Force, I cannot read the hatred in your eyes? I’ve been in your mind, Dameron, and not only that…” He breathed in, and the way he lowered his voice sounded almost too intimate. “I sensed you.  There, in the shuttle.” With those words Poe’s heart stopped, his lungs seizing as Ren smiled, leaning forward as much as his dared, hair like a dark curtain. Poe thought, with a pang, that it was long enough to braid now. He tilted his head back, locking his gaze with Ren’s, watching as Ren brought one hand up to the end of the cage, fingers hovering over the field. “I sensed how close you were, how your fingers itched to pull that trigger, how you debated leaving me to die. Tell me, does your precious General know you have these thoughts? Your squad? Or do they look at you and see only the Resistance’s best pilot, best asset, best _weapon_?” The last word was a snarl and Poe reeled back as if stung. Kylo Ren smiled.

“I thought so. Don’t shove your misplaced guilt on me and pretend it makes you a better person, Dameron. We are, all of us weapons, monsters in our own way,” and if the ysalamiri hadn’t been present Poe would have sworn Ren had ripped those thoughts straight from his head.

He left the room accompanied by the sound of Kylo Ren’s low, mocking laughter, but stopped when he saw a young man standing outside nervously, a plate of unappetising-looking food in his hands. Poe gave him a quick once-over, eyes narrowed.

“Your name wouldn’t happen to be Tanis, would it?” he asked, and were he in a better mood perhaps he would have found the young man’s stumbling answer to be endearing and the awe in his eyes vaguely flattering, if somewhat vexing. In the wake of Ren’s accusations, however, he felt only hollowness, hollowness and guilt, and his eyes moved pointedly to the food before resting on Tanis’ face. There was zero mirth in Poe’s expression, the easy smile that so many attributed to him nowhere to be found, and Tanis seemed to shrink under his gaze.

“If you try anything,” Poe said lowly, gesturing to the food and then to the door, “I’ll know.”

As he left he wondered why he’d ever believed Ren needed the Force to get into his head.

\--

That night he dreamed of the Great Temple on Yavin IV, of climbing over mossy rocks and watching as Ben brought a pair of shears to his glossy black hair.

“Because I love you,” Ben said, echoing Poe’s words, pressing his gift into Poe’s hand and closing Poe’s fingers over it, “and I’ll love you even when the stars go out.”

Poe woke up grasping at nothing, the imprint of a braid he’d never held etched into his palm with his nails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This chapter has inspired some truly fantastic fanart by an amazingly talented artist. Check it out below and cry with me because it's gorgeous:**
> 
>  
> 
> [Dream Sequence (pt.1)](http://nichasheng.tumblr.com/post/144148914615) by [nichasheng](http://nichasheng.tumblr.com/).  
> [Dream Sequence (pt.2)](http://nichasheng.tumblr.com/post/144748845675/this-is-my-second-comic-page-for-fanfic-judas) by [nichasheng](http://nichasheng.tumblr.com/).
> 
> \--
> 
> \- I absolutely did not rip the line about the force cage only causing mild electric burns from some of Atton Rand's opening dialogue in KOTOR 2. I do not have a problem.  
> \- Ysalamiri are actually canon, I kid you not. I did not make up the weird Force-cancelling lizards. Electricity and electric currents also apparently disrupt a Force-user's connection to the Force but then again I imagine anyone's connection to anything would be disrupted were they being zapped by lightning. I considered going with a neural disruptor but Bastila Shan broke out of one of those and Kylo Ren's likely more powerful than she was, so. Force-cancelling lizards it was!
> 
> I cry a lot over these two weapons. Come cry with me on [tumblr](http://benamidalaas.tumblr.com/), and please let me know what you thought here in the comments! They make my life. Seriously.


	7. sand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren's sense of humour needs work. Poe's probably does as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Over a month later and this chapter is finally done! So sorry for the wait, everyone. My fic for the knightpilot exchange was 18k so that's where most of my attention was, and then I started my spring classes. This chapter, at almost 6.5k, is hopefully long enough (and good enough) to make up for the wait. Subsequent updates should be expected every week or two!

Poe didn’t have any holograms of Ben Organa, and no trinkets either. For all intents and purposes _Ben_ existed nowhere but in the memories of those who had known him, though Poe supposed the General likely had some old holograms kicking around, or maybe old toys Ben had played with as a child before he’d been handed to his uncle and forced to give it all up. Poe didn’t know, but he was quickly finding out that, despite his intelligence and rank, he didn’t know a lot of things. Certainly not about Ben Organa, anyway. Or Kylo Ren.

Whoever he was.

He wondered if that was why he’d dreamed of the braid. If, perhaps, his subconscious was straining to find something, _anything_ that would remind him of Ben, which was stupid because the biggest reminder of Ben was currently on base in the form of a six-foot-something dark Force-user who tried to intimidate at anyone who approached him, especially Poe.

Despite his mocking words, Kylo Ren’s expression had registered surprise when Poe walked in with his food a few days after their last talk. He looked frazzled, exhausted, but his unguarded eyes had flickered to Poe’s face with mistrust before his mouth had twisted into a savage snarl.

“Still guilty, then.”

“Still bitter, then,” Poe had quipped back, the words containing too much bite to pass as nonchalant, but after a few tense seconds of staring Ren had snorted and turned his head away, the dismissal clear. Poe, in an action derived from pure spite, had proceeded to administer the meal before pulling up a chair and _talking_. It hadn’t even mattered what he was talking about, not when Ren’s face had been so wonderfully frustrated, and Poe had left with a smug sway to his steps and the notion that he was probably being childish. He hadn’t cared then and he didn’t care four days later, however, and Ren had only continued to be a source of tension on D’Qar, as well as the topic of many a gossip thread.

Poe snorted, and said topic of gossip glanced sharply at him. Ren had pulled his cowl up today, partially obscuring his face, but Poe didn’t pay the defiant gesture any heed, not when he wasn’t looking at him anyway.

“Why are you still here?” Ren demanded, the way he had every time Poe had refused to leave after giving him his food. Poe only shrugged. He wasn’t always sure himself, especially since he could never shake the strange emptiness that seemed to fill him whenever he was in the room, but he supposed that if he had to be miserable, Ren might as well be too. It was only fair, considering their previous discussion.

“Guess I have nothing better to do,” he said, mouth curving into a small grin when Ren didn’t respond. Instead, Ren merely watched him for another few minutes before turning away and picking at his food, eating painfully slow but with a weird tension, as if he were afraid Poe was going to snatch it away from him.

“Did you know,” Poe began smoothly, “that people talk about you?” He couldn’t see whether Ren stiffened, not with how far away Ren was, but he liked to pretend he had. He received no answer, though he hadn’t truly expected one, and continued on with, “Finch wanted you to be a female twi’lek, but had he seen you he would’ve known you don’t have the figure for all the skimpy dance outfits he was likely imagining you in.”

Ren sighed, an angry sound that was more growl than not, but Poe ignored him. Somewhere deep inside a voice was telling him to stop, that he was a commander and should act like it, but another part, an angrier part, was telling him he could be doing far worse to the man who had literally _tortured_ him, and therefore Kylo Ren should be grateful Poe hadn’t just put a blaster to his head and ended his sorry life right then and there.

Poe tried to ignore that part of him, and he cursed Ren for looking—for _seeing_ —where everyone else had been content to overlook.

“Finn says the stormtroopers used to speculate,” Poe continued, “so I assume you wore that monstrosity of a mask everywhere on the ship, and not just to interrogate unfortunate prisoners.” The jab was low, and he knew it, but the angry monster in his chest was momentarily satisfied, so what did it matter? Ren didn’t react, at least not that Poe could tell from this distance, the energy field distorting his image too much.

“Pava’s guess was that—“

“I don’t particularly care what your little band of misfits and traitors think about me, Dameron,” Ren cut in, finally slinking from his place at the far end of the cage to stand on the side nearest Poe, looming like a dark shadow, close enough for Poe to see the tension in Ren’s hulking frame. Poe remained on the ground, cross-legged, and popped another piece of his spiceloaf into his mouth.

“Don’t you want to hear my favourite theory?” Poe murmured after he swallowed. Ren hissed.

“What I want is for you to leave me alone,” Ren said, hateful. The dark little monster in Poe’s chest relished the sound, and he let himself indulge it here, in this cell, where he had no immediate audience. If Ren wasn’t prepared to take then he shouldn’t have dished out, Poe thought.

“Yeah, well,” he said at last, “we don’t always get what we want, now do we?” If Ren noticed the bitterness of the words—which he surely did, he was so damn observant about everything else Poe didn’t want him to see or hear—he said nothing, and Poe took that as tacit permission to continue.

“Pava thought you might have been a Miraluka,” he continued, as if Ren had never interrupted. “Seeing through the Force and all that. If I hadn’t known better I might have agreed with that one but, well. As it happens, I _do_ know better. Lucky me.”

Ren grumbled as Poe continued to talk, and Poe couldn’t be sure, but he swore he could hear a muttered _better than a female twi’lek_ as Ren moved back to the other side of the cage.

When Poe left the room, it was with a smile.

 --

“Do you have no friends of your own?” Ren questioned the next time Poe came in, once again carrying two plates of food. His squad had asked where he was going, but Poe had merely waved them off, saying he had a few things to do. BB-8 had rolled off with Finn, vaguely affronted when Poe had explained that it would be best the droid stay behind, but Poe knew he’d be forgiven sooner rather than later.

“Maybe I just like dangerous men,” Poe retorted, smirking when Ren scoffed. It was strange feeling, speaking with Kylo Ren and holding a civil conversation, of all things, when their last few encounters had gone so poorly, but Poe was nothing if not persistent. He couldn’t help but wonder if they’d simply exhausted themselves shouting at one another.

The thought made Poe frown as he recalled Ren’s accusations, the ones that had burrowed their way into his subconscious despite Poe’s efforts to shut them out.

 _Does your precious General know you have these thoughts? Your squad?_ Kylo Ren whispered in his mind, the memory of his voice far more threatening than it had been in person as Poe’s subconscious continued to lend the words far more strength than they ought to have. Maybe that was why he came, to get back at Ren, to say something, _anything_ that would weasel into Ren’s mind the way Ren had so purposefully wormed into his.

He shook his head and started eating, chasing away the thoughts with a quick swig of water. Through the electric field he watched Ren do the same, eating with the same strange precision Poe had started noticing once Ren seemed assured the food was actually his.

“The First Order will come for me,” Ren said lowly, startling Poe from his observations. His words were strong, but something in his face looked tired still. Worn. “The Supreme Leader will know where I am by now. He’ll send someone.”

“You seem to have a lot of faith in an organisation that killed billions of people with the flip of a switch,” Poe said mildly, not letting on how perturbed he felt at the idea of the First Order staging an invasion. “Ren,” he continued, pushing past how heavy the name sounded on his tongue, “it’s been over a month. I think they would have tried to send word by now if they knew you were here.”

Ren just looked at him blankly and shrugged. “The lizards mean the Supreme Leader cannot reach me through the Force, but where else would I be? I am the Master of the Knights of Ren. Someone will come.”

“Surely they would have tried retrieving you by now if they were going to,” Poe pressed.

Ren shifted, chewing his food with purpose. He swallowed and said, “It may be a punishment, letting me stay this long, but mark my words, they will send someone, and when they get here you’ll be wishing your death was as quick as those in the Hosnian system. The Supreme Leader is not a kind man.”

“I doubt anyone with a title like that is motivated by _kindness_ ,” Poe muttered. Ren sent him a scathing look, and Poe wondered if he’d been correct in his earlier assumption that they were both exhausted from the earlier fights, for instead of a spiteful spiel Ren simply fell silent, and try as he might Poe couldn’t get another word out of him.

It didn’t stop Poe from walking out with a cheeky _see you later_ when he left, though.

\--

Ren was only slightly more amenable when Poe returned in two day’s time, fresh from a scouting mission, but Poe didn’t let that bother him. He wasn’t here to make Ren feel special, after all, just to make sure Ren didn’t die under suspicious circumstances. He didn’t want to think about what the General would have to go through if she lost Han Solo, the New Republic, and her son in the span of less than a year.

“You’re back,” Ren greeted bluntly, rising from the floor of his cell, where he’d been executing a series of push-ups. It looked like he’d stripped to just his pants and a loose tunic that he must have worn under his robes, one that left his arms on display. Poe carefully averted his gaze from them.

“I’m back. Is your day ruined yet?” Poe asked, sliding the food into the receptacle, humming as he momentarily deactivated part of the field so Ren could reach through and take the food. He frowned when, instead of retrieving the food, Ren snapped his hand back, eyes resting warily on Poe’s face.

“Well take it,” Poe said impatiently, watching as Ren slowly grabbed the tray, containing a bowl of some kind of soup that had filled the corridors with a homely aroma as Poe carried it towards the cellblock. Ren shot him a glare for good measure, faking a lunge that had Poe stepping back instinctively.

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” he bit out, but he wasn’t expecting Ren’s eyes to narrow with mirth, his body shaking with silent laughter. It felt extraordinarily like being mocked.

“I suppose I should be grateful you’re at least giving me the food,” Ren said in a too-calm tone, but the rough cadence of his voice ensured any smoothness was gone. “Is that what you’re waiting for? A thank you?”

“I don’t need your gratitude _or_ your attitude,” Poe snipped. Ren’s snark was indefinitely preferred to his rage, though, and it was a game two could play at, helped by the fact that Poe didn’t have to hold back. After all, if Ren had already seen as much as he claimed to, what was the point of trying to smile and play nice? It was better than fighting the urge to strangle the man, at the very least, and way better than feeling Ren’s fingers grab his mind and _pull_ —

Poe cut that train of thought off, aware that his breathing had quickened and that Ren was watching him with narrowed eyes through the electric walls of the cell. Not wanting to look at Ren, Poe busied himself with his food before he stopped, Ren’s last words catching up to him. “Ren,” he said lowly, not looking up from his food, feeling vaguely ill. “Do you eat?”

Ren’s was silent, then: “I’m eating right now.”

“When I am not here, _do you eat?_ ” Poe demanded, finally looking up, holding Ren’s eyes through the energy field. His body was tingling slightly as disbelief and rage mingled together, making his fists clench at his side.

“Well,” Ren said at last, his lip curling in a sneer that didn’t quite reach his eyes, “I’m a prisoner. Did you honestly think this kind of thing wouldn’t happen, even in the Resistance?” A pause. “You used to be smarter than that.”

“Tell me who.”

“Dameron. Don’t tell me you care.” Ren’s face was blank, his eyes distorted by the cell. “We talked about this. Besides, it’s no different from training.”

“Don’t you dare turn this on me,” Poe hissed. “ _Tell me who_.”

Ren scoffed. “You honestly think I know their names? I can hardly lift such information from their insufferable heads in this state.” Poe watched as Ren shifted, setting on the floor of the cell. It made Poe think of Ben, and how he’d used to watch Ben meditate by the river’s edge. Without his connection to the Force, was a thing like meditation even possible for Force-users? He wondered what it was like, being cut off from the Force after feeling it for decades, and thought that perhaps that had something to do with why Ren always looked like a tired, caged beast, chafing at chains both invisible and not.

Then again, maybe he looked tired because, for all intents and purposes, he wasn’t being fed properly.

Poe stood slowly. “The guard will come in and take the dish when you’re finished,” he said, and he didn’t spare Ren another glance before walking out, not stopping until the hanger came into view and a familiar, excited stream of binary greeted him.

In the end, with BB-8’s help, it took very little time to retrieve the list of personnel assigned to ensure Ren kept breathing, and it took even less to arrange for them all to gather in one of the smaller conference rooms.

“We’re supposed to be better than this,” he told them, trying and failing to keep the anger out of his voice as he confronted them with the security footage that showed a couple of them dumping the food into an incinerator as Ren sneered. “We have to be better than _them_.”

“Sir—“ one of them tried to say, but Poe cut them off with a narrow-eyed glare, calling on every inch of training he possessed to keep his voice level even as the rage threatened to overwhelm him. He understood on some level. _Stars_ , of course he did. They were young, all of them, hardly older than twenty, and he had been their age once, too—they didn’t know enough to put their personal feelings aside yet, and Kylo Ren was every monster under the bed come to life, in possession of mystic powers and a bloodthirsty reputation that had only increased as the base whispered about what they did not understand. In times past the Jedi had believed in not killing their prisoners, and it had cost them an entire war. Poe was more practical than a Jedi, though, and that was why, when his mind whispered _kill him_ Poe had almost wanted to give into it, overwhelmed as much by logic as by rage. The recruits didn’t know that, though, so Poe continued to dress them down as even as a guilty part of his mind, the part Ren had pointed out, whispered _traitor, traitor, hypocrite, you almost killed him yourself_.

It didn’t matter, in the end. Poe had made his choice in that downed shuttle when he had dragged Kylo Ren out instead of putting a blaster to his head, and he stuck grimly by that decision, allowing it to explain the strange curl of protectiveness in his gut at the idea of anyone hurting Ren. He had chosen to keep Ren alive, and therefore Ren’s life was in his hands. It was logical. The tactician part of his brain was satisfied.

If Ren noticed a difference in how he was treated after that he said nothing the next time Poe came in, but that was fine. Poe didn’t mention it either. 

\--

 “Missed you last week, dear,” Ren said, his voice so dry Poe thought he could give that hellplanet Jakku a run for its money.

“I was busy,” Poe said smoothly, sliding into his usual spot beside Ren’s cage, forgoing the use of the chair again. Ren loomed over him for a few moments, clearly disgusted with his continued presence, but when it was clear Poe wasn’t going anywhere he sighed and moved over to where he had placed his food.

“Yes,” Ren said once he was settled, the dryness giving way to a flat tone. “I could tell. Did you get that promotion you were working towards?”

Poe’s mouth twitched, and he wasn’t sure whether it was in amusement or irritation.

“Why yes, _sweetheart_ ,” he cooed. “You can finally buy that shiny vintage Darth Vader statuette I know you’ve been eyeing.”

“Thoughtful,” Ren snarked, thought Poe could tell by the narrowing of Ren’s eyes that he’d struck a nerve. Pleased with himself, Poe settled in to eat, enjoying the relative solitude of the room. It was oddly peaceful, even with a volatile Force-user lurking in it, separated from Poe only by a couple lizards and an electric field. He didn’t always bring his own food to eat, sometimes staying in the mess with his squad, but he brought Ren his when he could, and it had become… oddly routine. Once or twice he had encountered General Organa on his way to the cells and she had looked at him with curiosity, but she hadn’t pressed, and Poe had merely nodded and been on his way.

“Oh, darling,” Ren singsonged as Poe dropped a piece of his food and proceeded to hastily wipe it up before it could stain, “be careful. Don’t want to mess up your nice white shirt.”

Poe snorted, looking down at his shirt, which was decidedly not white today, but rather black. “Did you spend all day thinking up pet names?”

“Of course not. I read, you know.”

“Ah. Shameless plagiarising, then,” Poe returned, his mouth quirking into a small smirk, ignoring the discomfort in his gut. This felt too normal. “I always imagined you First Order types were too busy to read.”

“We find the dossiers of our enemies extremely fascinating,” Ren deadpanned. “Tell me, Dameron, is it true the Resistance made a pinup calendar of you to motivate potential recruits?”

The comment (the lie) made Poe choke on the bite of spiceloaf he had taken, and it took him a moment before he was able to breathe again, his eyes watering as he tried to force air into his lungs.

“You’re maddening,” Poe hissed when he was able to speak again, and he was surprised to see a small smile flicker across Ren’s face.

“So I’ve been told.” 

\--

“If I never have to see sand again…” Finn muttered as he tried to avoid getting sand in his socks. From the grassy part of the riverbank Poe laughed, and from where she stood, water up to her waist, he saw Pava echo it. There was no shortage of work to be done with the Hosnian system gone, but for the moment they all had some time to themselves, and when Poe had suggested a trip to the river Wexley had groaned like Poe had offered him free passes to a luxury resort on Naboo.

“I love flying,” Finch had said as they’d all trudged down, flight suits long abandoned in favour of simple, low-quality civilian attire, “but I’ve been at the controls so much I swear my fingers are going to fuse to the trigger.”

Poe, who loved any excuse to fly, did not necessarily share the sentiment, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t read the need for a break on everyone’s faces.

Now, as he lay back against the grass, letting the sun warm his skin, he could admit that his motivations hadn’t been entirely selfless. He’d missed this, the feeling of a wet shirt clinging to his chest and the gurgle of the river, and as he closed his eyes he thought he could easily fall asleep here, letting the sounds of his squad’s laughter and the wind in the trees lull him into an easy sleep. He and Ben had used to do this all the time, sneaking down to play where the river hadn’t been so rough, and a smile came unbidden as he remembered frantically pulling a little dark-haired out of the waters that first time, when the lesson to stay away from the rapids hadn’t been so well learned.

Then he thought of Kylo Ren and felt cold.

“Poe?” Finn asked, and Poe realised he’d jolted up.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” Poe said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thought something was crawling on me, is all.”

Finn made a face at the idea, and Poe chuckled, laying back down. He supposed there weren’t many bugs in space, and Finn had likely grown up on First Order ships. The thought was sobering, but he kept the smile plastered across his face, so practiced that by now no one could tell when it was genuine and when it was just there to keep people from looking too deep.

“Reminds me of Dandoran,” Pava said as she waded back to shore, Kun’s arm slung lazily around her shoulders. Finch was still paddling around in the waves with Arana, and Asty was further upriver, while Bastian and Wexley were chatting somewhere behind him, closer to the shade of the trees.

“Ooooh, Dandoran,” Kun said, grinning. “Who’d have thought such a nice planet could be located in Hutt Space.”

Pava made a face. “Ugh, don’t even jest. The thought of those slimy worms anywhere near Dandoran makes me want to gag.” Poe watched as she hauled herself up onto the bank, Kun right beside her.

“Stars, _yes_ ,” Kun groaned, spreading her limbs. Poe rolled his eyes good-naturedly, moving over to accommodate them both, and he was aware of Finn smiling at them from where he’d moved to a patch of grass, brushing sand and dirt off his drying feet.

“I used to read down by the river at home,” Pava said wistfully, one arm slung across her eyes. “All the stories of Luke Skywalker and the Rebellion. I dreamed of saving the galaxy just like him. Of being a Jedi. Sadly, I could only achieve one of those goals.” She rolled onto her stomach with a grin. “What about the rest of you? We’re all jungle-dwellers, aren’t we? Or most of us, anyway. Sort of. Sorry, Finn.”

The man in question shrugged, and Wexley snorted. “Maybe, but Akiva was so hot and humid it was hard to enjoy it.” He made an absent gesture with his hands and Poe hummed, compiling all he knew about his squad’s home planets as everyone’s eyes slowly turned to Bastian, who just raised an eyebrow.

“Coruscant, born and raised,” he said simply as Arana began making his way in, dragging Finch and Asty along. They were quick to jump into the discussion and Poe let himself drift again, his thoughts flowing through his mind in gentle waves, and it wasn’t until Arana waved his hand in front of Poe’s eyes that he jolted back into the moment, a querying _hm?_ leaving his throat as the members of his squads grinned down at him.

“What about your home planet, Poe?” Finn asked, cocking his head in a display of curiosity. Poe didn’t know why, but that innocent gesture, combined with the sounds of the river and the feeling of the grass under his fingertips, made his chest ache, even as something soft unfurled in his chest at the idea of Finn settling in with the rest of his squad. Poe knew Finn must have been missing Rey, but he bore it well.

“… There was a river like this that ran close to our homestead on Yavin IV,” Poe said at last, looking out over the rushing waters. “I used to come down here a lot with—“ he broke off with a cough, but Arana’s large eyes sparked with mischief and he leaned forward with a hum and a suggestive quirk of his eyebrow.

“With?” he drawled, and Poe almost hated him as a strange kind of panic seized his chest. He didn’t talk about Ben. He _never_ talked about Ben. For over fifteen years he hadn’t so much as _hinted_ about the boy he had once fancied himself in love with, and with Kylo Ren planetside, his resolution to never speak of Ben had only increased. He chided himself for the slip and rolled his shoulders in a shrug, but there was no escaping the interested eyes of his squad.

“An old friend of mine,” he murmured. “Saved him from drowning in a river like this once. We used to come down a lot after that, when he was free.”

“He fell in?” Bastian asked.

“Yeah,” Poe replied, feeling dread curl in his chest. “It had been raining, and we were young. He was only four. I hauled him out, though I’m sure he thought I was just going to leave him there, considering we punched each other out when we first met.”

Wexley guffawed, clapping him on the back, and Poe allowed himself to take a small bit of comfort in the gesture of camaraderie, even though he felt like he was drifting further and further away from the men and women around him with every word he spoke.

“Let me guess, you were best friends forever after that?” Asty ventured.

“Something like that,” Poe said vaguely, making sure the spark of anger at the flippant comment didn’t appear anywhere on his face before he took a deep breath and added, “He was a good friend.”

Everyone was silent for a few moments after that, and while Poe felt bad for killing the previously jovial mood he couldn’t regret it, not when he knew it would prevent them from pressing. If there was one thing Poe had learned it was that potential death and grief was a subject very few people were willing to broach.

He didn’t want to talk about Ben. Not with his squad, not with anybody, and the only person he’d make an exception for was likely bogged down meeting with a million descending dignitaries from the remnants of the New Republic at the moment. He didn’t envy the General that.

“So,” Poe said, flashing Finn a small grin. “Finn, buddy. How about that sand?”

Finn threw his boot in Poe’s direction. Pava laughed.

Poe hoped his smile hid his relief.

\--

It was an odd relief to storm into Kylo Ren’s cell later that day, to the point where he almost didn’t realise he had no official reason to be there. Judging by way Ren watched him, like a startled animal, Poe’s visit was a surprise to them both.

“I’ve already eaten,” Ren said flatly, “and as you can see, I’m regrettably still stuck in this cell and not being treated for poisoning in medbay, so you can stop feeling guilty and leave.”

“Like they’d waste precious resources on you,” Poe muttered, pressing against the door panel and hissing in relief as the door slid shut. He didn’t know if Ren’s surprise was so obvious because he allowed it to show or because he genuinely couldn’t control it. “I meant the poison,” Poe clarified.

Ren looked distinctly unimpressed, and Poe didn’t blame him. He took his customary spot by Ren’s cell, though he dragged one of the chairs over this time instead of just sitting on the floor. He said nothing, and he didn’t need the Force to feel Ren’s growing frustration. He had thrown the man off-kilter by coming here when he had no official reason, and now Ren was groping desperately for an explanation.

“What the hell do you want, pilot?” Ren eventually snarled, his hands balling into fists at his side. “Visiting hours are over. This exhibit is closed. Why don’t you go back to your adoring fans? I’m sure there are plenty of people on this forsaken planet who would absolutely love to spend time with the Resistance’s golden boy.”

Poe felt the anger spike in his chest, and he levelled Ren with a glare.

“Not so fun, is it, being captive for an audience?” he snapped before he could stop himself. Ren’s expression darkened, and Poe knew that, had it not been for the ysalamiri, he’d likely have been feeling the phantom grip of the Force at his throat again. The thought made his head pound.

“Do you pity me, Dameron?” Ren said then, and the abrupt tonal change from enraged to silky smooth temporarily knocked Poe off-kilter. “Is that why you come here? Or maybe you’re still trying to see something that’s no longer there. The General didn’t ask you about me, did she? She visited once, but I don’t think she liked whatever she saw.” Ren’s smile was ugly, a twisted mockery of the boy he had once been, and it was like the previous weeks of strange civility had never existed. “Maybe that’s why you’re here. Leave.”

“I don’t take orders from a murderer,” Poe growled, and Ren snorted.

“Don’t you?”

“What the hell are you playing at?” Poe snapped.

"How much blood do you have on your hands, Dameron?" Ren hissed, slinking across the cage like an agitated felinx. "How many eyes have you dimmed? How many times have you stood over the bodies of your enemies and felt not remorse at their deaths, not relief that you survived, but _satisfaction_ , because you've managed to prove once more how skilled you are? The perfect weapon of the Resistance. General Organa's personal hound. She’s not so clean herself."

The words hit their mark. Poe stood there and felt the anger curl in his chest, wanting nothing more than to reach out and wrap his hands around Ren's pale throat and _squeeze_ until that mocking light left the other man's eyes but he _couldn’t_ because he was better than that, because that was what Ren _wanted,_ Poe thought abruptly. Ren wanted Poe to doubt himself. Ren wanted Poe's anger. Poe's hatred. And with that realisation came the notion that perhaps Ren wanted it because he thought he deserved it, and that was enough to make Poe snap out of the haze of anger, forcing his body to relax. The way Ren's face suddenly flickered in uncertainty made the effort worth it.

"Then I guess we're perfectly suited to be in each other's company, yeah?" Poe said, catching Ren's dark gaze and holding it. "Two weapons. Two hounds of war."

“Get out,” Ren shouted. Poe was only too happy to obey. 

\--

“The Sluis sector has always been loyal to the Republic,” Wexley argued, gesturing to the projection of a large terrestrial planet that spun slowly in the middle of the room. “The planet Agora is still within the Outer Rim, has a decent amount of natural resources, natural fortifications in the mountain that we could use and, most importantly, a Type I atmosphere.”

“It could mark us as a target,” Admiral Statura cautioned, studying the projection with wariness that spoke of years of experience. “They’ll expect us to hide within Republic space now that the Hosnian system is gone, and Agora has a civilian population that we’ll have to work around.”

“With all due respect, Admiral,” Poe interjected, “the First Order already knows where we are, and the Hosnian system was part of the Core Worlds. If the First Order was willing to attack them, then I doubt there’s any planet they wouldn’t hack away at if they thought it had a chance at destroying us.”

“It might be our best bet,” Wexley finished. The room was silent for a moment before a sigh caught Poe’s attention, and he swivelled his head to meet the slightly hunched form of Major Caluan Ematt, who watched the projection with a sharp gaze that seemed at odds with his wrinkled face and snowy white hair.

“Why must we remain in the Outer Rim at all?” Ematt questioned. “The Republic Remnant is without centre. It’s unstable. We should be moving into the Core Worlds, not away from them. We need to provide a stable base for the Republic to rally around, and we can’t do that out here.”

“Ematt’s right,” General Organa said, sounding tired. “We need a rallying point.”

“At least we know the Republic will listen this time,” someone said from the back of the room. “All it took was billions of deaths.”

“You’d think they’d have learned after Alderaan,” Tabala Zo added, which set off a flurry of hushed whispers.

“That’s enough,” the General said firmly, and Poe’s heart ached for her. He kept his silence, however. She didn’t need his sympathies, not here, and it would be an insult for anyone to offer it in front of a room full of people. “I will send a series of reconnaissance flights out to look for suitable bases. In the meantime, we must continue to oversee the arrival of Republic resources and troops. Arana, I need you to take your squad to Manaan.” From where he stood beside Poe Arana nodded, his large, brightly coloured eyes glittering as the hologram in the middle of the room switched to display the water world in question. Poe spared a moment to wonder why he had not been chosen before dragging his attention back to the projection. “We have rumours of First Order activity there, and I don’t want the First Order to gain an advantage by securing access to what kolto can still be scavenged.”

“With all due respect, General, why kolto?” one of the lieutenants—a young zygerrian—asked, his brow furrowing. “We have a decent supply of bacta, and—“

“Listen to me, Lieutenant,” the General said, cutting him off. “It may not feel like it to everyone, not after Starkiller, but we’re at war. We have not yet won. Any advantage is crucial, and if a time shall come where we’re running short of bacta, we’ll be grateful for the backup materials. There is no such thing as too many medical supplies, especially with an entire system eradicated.”

The lieutenant’s delicate feline face flushed where the white fur did not cover skin, his ears twitching back in a show of deference and embarrassment, and Poe spared a moment’s pity for him.

“You are all dismissed,” the General said then, shutting down the hologram, making Poe blink as his eyes adjusted to the dimmed lighting of the room. He sighed, cataloguing some possible upgrades to BB-8, before the General caught his attention.

“Poe,” she said as everyone filed out, “a word, if you please?”

He felt a slight sliver of apprehension, but he nodded, curious, striding over to where the General stood, her hands still braced against the inactive console.

“Ma’am?” he asked, and the General huffed.

“Oh, don’t call me that. It makes me feel old.”

“Please,” Poe said before he could stop himself, “as if you could ever be old.” He smiled when her mouth quirked into an expression of reluctant amusement, and when she muttered a quick _walk with me_ he fell into easy steps behind her, thoughts dragging over everything and nothing until they reached a small, empty conference room, something that made Poe’s brow arch as his curiosity increased. The General closed the door, leaning against it for a moment, but before Poe could say anything she straightened, turning to look him dead in the eye.

“How is my son?” she asked, something softening almost imperceptibly in her face. Poe startled, surprised at the question, but he chided himself for not seeing it coming.

“Spirited,” Poe said haltingly, and the General laughed a little at the attempt at humour. “He eats. He exercises. I think he’s a little stir-crazy, but he still manages to be infuriating on a regular basis.” Poe shrugged. “He hasn’t tried to kill me, though I get the feeling you’d have a different story if those lizards weren’t there.”

The General was silent for a few moments. “I’m glad,” she said at last, voice low and rough. “Has he spoken of anything? Anything important?”

“He thinks the First Order will come for him,” Poe said, “but, General, it’s been well over a month. Kylo Ren is one of the First Order’s best assets. That they haven’t sent someone…”

“The ysalamiri prevent Ben’s master from reaching him through the Force. Whether or not he knows that’s why he can no longer reach my son is another story,” she replied, unconsciously echoing Ren’s earlier words. “It’s possible he thinks Ben defected and found another way to cut him off. Still, you are correct. It’s concerning that we’ve heard nothing from them. Ben’s master would not let him go so easily.”

“Snoke…” Poe mumbled, recalling his earlier conversation with the General in a lonely hanger with the memories of Ren’s angry words ringing in his head. “He’s the Supreme Leader Ren mentioned, isn’t he.” It wasn’t a question. “He’s Kylo Ren’s master.”

The General looked surprised, then hesitant, but she nodded. “He’s a dangerous creature, Snoke,” she said, “and I fear he has not taken Ben’s disappearance well. We must be on our guard.”

Poe’s face darkened, but he nodded, feeling a sudden flash of hatred towards this creature, this _Snoke_ , Ren’s _Supreme Leader_ , but he held his tongue. The General had something else on her mind, he could tell by the way she was looking at him.

“I have other news,” she said at last, her hands resting with false calm at her sides. Poe’s nodded, sensing that, whatever news she was about to say, it was important.

“Luke and Rey. They’re returning to D’Qar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you missed it, check the notes [at the end of chapter six](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5647588/chapters/15018082#chapter_6_endnotes) to see the amazing fanart/comic the incredibly talented [nichasheng](http://nichasheng.tumblr.com/) drew for the dream sequence in the last chapter! I'm still crying happily over it.
> 
> Anyway, again, sorry for the wait, everyone! You guys won't have to wait that long for the next chapter (I have no more 18k one-shots in the work with a deadline), and thank you so much for being patient with me and sticking with this fic.
> 
> Please let me know what you think here in the comments (comments keep the muse up!) and come hang out with me on [tumblr](http://benamidalaas.tumblr.com/)!


	8. shield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dead who don't stay dead are always the hardest to reconcile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life's been rough, guys. I had spring session and then I got really sick (I actually wrote most of this while still sick, but had to wait until I felt well enough to edit it because hoo boy, I should never be allowed to write when sick). At this point I still intend to finish this fic, but I can't promise frequent, weekly updates. I hope the lengthier chapters make up for the wait, and I thank everyone who's stuck by me.

The thing about droids was that, when treated right, they could be unflappably loyal. Poe knew there was a score of people in the galaxy who thought of droids as little more than glorified servants, and in many ways they could be, were  _programmed_ to be, but Poe, who owed his life to a droid and who had seen, firsthand, the way BB-8 lit up when he was near, could never be one of those people. Perhaps droids weren’t sentient the same way organic lifeforms were, but they sure as hell had personalities, as BB-8 had been stubbornly demonstrating by refusing to give him the time of day. He deserved it, he knew, and were he a pettier man he’d foist the blame for his reticence and neglect fully on Kylo Ren, but he wasn’t, and that was why, after some coaxing, Poe had convinced BB-8 to sit still whilst he carefully upgraded the droid’s shock arm to produce a more stinging jolt with greater range. He took great care to clean BB-8 as well, making sure every little gear was running smoothly, though when BB-8 butted purposefully against the weapon hanging at Poe’s hip he had to laugh.

“Sorry, buddy, but I don’t think that would fit,” he said regretfully, concealing a smile. BB-8 was silent for a moment before emitting a short, almost sullen beep, conveying not words but sentiment. Poe let his smile show before schooling his face into an expression of mock-seriousness.  Sometimes it was hard to predict how BB-8 was going to respond, the droid alternating between childishness one second and the exact opposite the next, and he knew some found it odd, but to Poe, that was just BB-8, the same way any person was who they were. Still, it looked like today BB-8 was feeling more childish, and so Poe adapted. “It’s just not a good idea,” he explained. “After all, if we gave you a blaster, you’d have the entire First Order on the run in no time, and then I’d be out of a job.” He pointed his finger purposefully at BB-8 and resisted the urge to chuckle when an approving sequence of compressed binary met his declaration, the droid’s pride thoroughly satisfied. Poe patted BB-8’s newly-shined body, and the fact that BB-8 allowed it showed that Poe was mostly forgiven for his earlier transgressions.

That was a relief. It crushed something soft inside Poe when BB-8 was genuinely displeased with him. Crawling out of Black One to see BB-8 rolling towards him that time after Takodana, bowling personnel out of the way without a care, had brought with it a surge of relief, and the smile that had stolen across his face had been one of the most genuine expressions after his treatment on the _Finalizer_. He didn’t always know what he’d done to cultivate the loyalty BB-8 showed him, but stars, he knew he’d do everything in his power to ensure that the little droid’s faith was not misplaced.

“All right,” Poe said, “I think we’re all done here. Why don’t you give it a try?”

BB-8 was silent for a moment before whipping the shock arm out and zapping a piece of fruit that Poe had placed on a nearby table. Poe winced.

“Aw, bud, that was my lunch,” he said, but there was no real bite to it, his mind too busy being pleased that the upgrade had worked. That it had helped to pass time before the arrival of the Millennium Falcon was just an added bonus.

Rising to his feet, Poe patted BB-8’s cylindrical body once more before he walked out of the room, tucking the rag he’d been using between the sleeves of the orange flight suit tied securely around his waist as he went, BB-8 rolling at a companionable pace beside him.

He was hardly surprised to find Finn already waiting on the tarmac where all the grounded X-wings stood, primed and ready to fly at a moment’s notice, dimly outlined in the harsh shadows of twilight. Finn wasn’t out here for a mission, though, and neither was Poe, who watched with a soft tilt to his mouth as BB-8 rolled forward to hover at Finn’s feet.

“Hey,” Poe greeted, and was rewarded with one of Finn’s closed-mouthed smiles before they were both distracted by the arrival of a third party— _party_ being an apt description, for General Organa was rarely alone, and she wasn’t now, shadowed as she was by a few of the Resistance’s high-ranking officers, as well as a few trusted operatives who wanted to see a living myth with their own eyes and greet a returning hero. Pava stood among them, her eyes trained on the sky with the rapt attention of the devout. Finn himself had a similar look, though his was softer, more subdued; he looked to the stars with a considering, excited expression, as though they held the answer to the world’s most important question.

Poe thought about Rey, about Finn’s desperation to help and his refusal to leave her behind, and wasn’t able stop himself from resting a hand briefly on the man’s shoulder.

“She might be different,” he cautioned, voice low in the gloom and almost lost to the excited murmurs around them. He tried not to think about how he knew this—how he’d once watched a sweetheart be led off to training and how, as the years had flown by, that sweetheart had begun to change. Poe huffed. A _sweetheart_. The image of Kylo Ren sitting alone in his cage flickered to life in his mind, but Poe dismissed it as Finn shifted minutely, then nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, maybe. But at her core she’ll still be Rey, Jedi or no. I don’t think her training will change that.”

Poe fought to swallow past the sudden lump that formed in his throat. Distantly, he could hear the sounds of an approaching ship. “Keep your faith with you, Finn,” he said, voice lined with emotion—regret? Grief? Pride? He didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Finn’s words resonated with him all the same, but the sounds and lights of the Millennium Falcon were growing ever closer so he said nothing else, instead giving Finn’s shoulder another quick pat before withdrawing his hand, feeling BB-8 nudge his leg in excitement.

By the time the ship landed and the gangplank slid open, Poe was sure the gathered people were holding a collective breath, and silence reigned supreme until the sound of heavy footsteps and Chewbacca’s low growl greeted them. Poe didn’t speak Shyriiwook, nor did he have passing fluency in any of the other language variants spoken by the wookies of Kashyyyk, but he didn’t need to know the language to understand a greeting, one he saw the General return with a smile. The others were smiling too, latching onto the moment of relief that marked the return of triumphant heroes, and Poe let his mind drift happily as he watched Finn’s face split into a smile when Rey flew down the ramp to envelope him in a tight hug. It was sweet, he thought, that she was so willing to initiate that sort of contact after months of separation, but when he thought about it, Rey had never displayed the aversion to touch that one might expect following years of living a hard life without kind contact.

He felt a stab of pity, of sympathy, and quickly ensured that none of it showed on his face, averting it just in case he failed, wishing, with all his heart, that they would be happy in whatever they decided to pursue, but it wasn’t his place to put a name to whatever lurked between them before they were ready. The flush of youth was still so high on their faces, and for a moment he envied them. He shared a glance with the General, and had to avert his eyes at her expression, his hands clenching briefly behind his back as he swore, lowly, that he would do everything in his power to ensure that Finn and Rey could always smile like they were, so unabashedly. The fact that they were both more than capable of hiding their smiles, of protecting themselves, mattered not. That wasn’t the point. They had been through hell, Finn and Rey, thrust into a war they never would have chosen but had become tied up in anyway, and Poe hoped, more than anything, that this conflict would not smother the lights in their eyes or the faith in their hearts, or steal from them their ability to see the goodness and beauty in the cruelty of the universe. Poe had chosen to fight this war before he'd even known of its existence, but the life he had chosen—the life of a soldier, of an operative—was not one he'd choose for everyone.

More importantly, it was a life he knew many wouldn't choose had they a choice.  Had this threat not been so real, he knew of many who would have liked nothing more than to retire to a planet like Dantooine and live out the rest of their lives in peace.

He met the General’s gaze again and gave her a swift nod before he moved to stand by her side, the both of them returning their eyes to the gangplank and the figure hovering at the top of it, face partially concealed by the hood of a dark cloak.

Poe Dameron knew the stories of Luke Skywalker, of course. Indeed, he knew far more about Luke Skywalker than he had ever let on to any of his squadmates, for it was hard not to know a thing about the person his mother had considered one of her closest friends. Luke Skywalker was a man turned myth, the farmer’s boy from Tatooine who had saved the galaxy from the clutches of the Galactic Empire, and he had been a shining light spearheading the future that he and his sister had been building together, both in their own ways. Once, a little boy named Ben had been a part of that future, until Kylo Ren—and perhaps one other, Poe thought, thinking of the mysterious Snoke—had destroyed it all. Then Skywalker had vanished, taking with him all hope for the Jedi, or so they had assumed, and his name had become associated with gods or fables told to children under the cover of darkness to keep the nightmares at bay.

To Poe, however, Skywalker had always been a man, less mythical than even the General herself. It had been no secret to Shara Bey that Poe had idolised Leia Organa, that she had been all the more mythical to him in the flushed naivety of youth, but perhaps some of that had been due to the fact that, while he could remember Leia Organa’s face, younger and happier, he could remember Luke’s so much more clearly, as he could remember riding happily on the man’s shoulders the first time he had shown up at their homestead when Poe was but four. Now, almost thirty years later, Poe still recalled stumbling out of his house to see a cloaked figure standing in front of the little fledgling tree, just as he recalled his mother’s words—if not the sound of her voice—as she lifted Poe into her arms and introduced him to _the_ Luke Skywalker.

“If you ever need anything, Poe, if you or your father are ever in danger,” Shara Bey had told him when he was older, “I want you to contact Luke. He’ll protect you.”

Poe had been starry-eyed at the thought of Luke Skywalker protecting _him_ , even as he’d insisted that he’d be able to protect his mother and father from anything that darkened their doorway, but in the end he had only nodded. In the years after that, however, he hadn’t seen Skywalker much, save through Ben’s words, which had painted a strange picture of Skywalker, alternating between affection and a bitter vitriol that’d had roots too deep for Poe to follow or grasp at such a young age.

Perhaps that was why it wasn’t so strange to see Skywalker as he was now, burdened with the weight of failure and guilt, something he saw reflected in the slump of the General’s shoulders daily. It contrasted with the way Poe remembered Skywalker smiling at his younger self, warm and affectionate, but this war had taken too much from all of them for Skywalker’s eyes to keep all their light. Poe had once been naïve enough to think the war could take nothing else from him, with Ben’s death, but even he had been faltering as of late.

The dead who didn’t stay dead were always the hardest to reconcile.

“Luke,” the General breathed, her hands relaxing at her side, and Skywalker almost seemed to start, though his body didn’t move. The others appeared to sense that this was an emotional moment, for they shifted away from the General. If she noticed—and Poe had no doubt she did—she didn’t give any indication, her eyes locked unwaveringly on her brother as Skywalker descended the gangplank, and this close Poe could see the dark metal that denoted a prosthetic, no longer hidden away by supple leather. He wondered if that had been a conscious choice. Then the General was reaching forward, her small hands settling on Luke’s forearms, and then she was pulling him into an embrace, so much softer than Finn and Rey’s had been, but fraught with meaning. Poe smothered the ache in his chest, and when Skywalker returned the embrace Poe let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

“Luke,” the General said again, her eyes bright with unshed tears. It wasn’t _welcome home_ , it wasn’t _where have you been_ or _why did you leave_ , and it wasn’t _good to see you again_ ; indeed, it wasn’t anything more than Skywalker’s name, but Poe knew it was so much more than that.

It was a small beacon of light returning to Leia Organa’s darkened world. 

\--

“If you came to tell me about Skywalker’s return,” Ren greeted as Poe swept into the room, fresh from a workout with his squad, “you needn’t bother. I cannot sense them, but it seems the Resistance’s true function in this galaxy is that of an idle gossip mill, as all Republic offshoots seem to be.”

Poe didn’t respond. Instead, he eyed Ren carefully where he sat cross-legged on his dark cloak, which was spread across the floor of the force cage, and waited until Ren frowned, the expression pulling at the scar that bisected his face. The scar Rey had left. Poe wondered if she would care enough to come by and see her handiwork, but he immediately dismissed the thought. He doubted Rey thought Ren worth her time, and he couldn’t help but agree with that sentiment. He wasn’t worth Rey’s time.

But, it seemed, he was worth Poe’s, and that realisation sat heavy upon his shoulders. Not knowing why he kept coming back, not knowing why he was drawn to Ren—it was vexing, especially keeping their last interaction in mind, when Ren had spit fire at him and demanded he leave. Sometimes he wanted nothing more than to crack Ren’s skull over the bulkhead, especially when he pried too deep, but in a way it was also a relief. Ren pushed and pulled and tore, and Poe, well, he pushed and pulled and tore right back the way he never could around anyone else. He had an image to maintain, after all, and Poe… he was good at maintaining images.

He was one of the Resistance’s best operatives for a reason.

“Are you going to be civil today?” Poe asked, running a hand through his damp hair, conscious of the way Ren’s eyes tracked the movement.

“No,” Ren said, unabashed, “so if that’s what you want, then I suggest you seek out other company. May I suggest your friends, the traitor and the scavenger?”

Poe’s eyes narrowed briefly. “You’re upset.”

“That my lifelong search and singular task to kill Skywalker is being denied me when he is within arm’s reach? Maybe a little.”

Poe just rolled his eyes, throwing himself into one of the nearby chairs, a small piece of crunchy fruit in his hands. Ren hadn’t even looked at the food that had been given to him earlier, and as Poe’s eyes traced the pinched lines of Ren’s face he remembered a monster in a mask and the search for a map so desperate that he had torn through Poe’s mind without mercy. He eventually looked away, returning his gaze to nothing in particular as he ate, suspecting that, if he continued to look at Ren, it would only... well, he didn't know, and that was the whole problem, wasn't it?

“He hasn’t come to see you yet,” Poe murmured after a moment. He didn’t look at Ren as he said it, staring idly at the ceiling instead, his mind a mess of memories and emotions that ranged from grief to regret, and from there to hatred and confusion.

“And he won’t,” Ren replied, “for the same reason _she_ has not. Guilt and failure are powerful things, Dameron. Even the great heroes of the Resistance have problems with it.”

“Are you saying you don’t?”

“Regret is a weakness that must be destroyed,” Kylo Ren said harshly. Poe wasn’t sure whether he wanted to strike Ren or pity him for parroting words so obviously not his own. “So no, I don’t.”

There was a pregnant silence before Poe asked, the words feeling like they were being pulled out from deep within by an unseen hand, “does Ben?”

Ren’s reaction was instantaneous, his body hunching like a cornered animal as he hissed, savagely, “Ben is dead,” but Poe didn’t respond. He was too busy blinking in horror at his own words, at the way Ren had reacted not in _anger_ , as he had previously, but in what looked to be _pain_. More than that, however, was Poe’s own fear at the verbal recognition that the fractured creature in front of him had once been Ben, perhaps still _was_ Ben, and he was scrambling to his feet and leaving the room before he even realised it, but he stopped when he heard Ren call to him, his voice ragged. Poe almost thought he could hear him breathing, even from this distance.

“Tell Skywalker not to come,” Ren rasped. “Tell them all to stay away. Besides, at Skywalker’s age, I wouldn’t be surprised if being cut off so abruptly from the Force brought him to his knees, and that just wouldn’t be good for moral.”

Poe left the room without answering, knowing, with a sickening sense of dread, that something important had just changed.

\--

The paths on Yavin IV seemed almost ethereal in this light, the jungle yet to reclaim them with low-lying ferns and moss. As a child Poe had trampled them often, and when he’d been too young to be trusted on his own his father had cleared some limited paths for him, warning him not to venture too far, and to watch for the howlers that liked to hide in the underbrush. It was strange, then, that they were so pristine now, free even of the roots that Poe remembered tripping over constantly and stretching deep into the forest, with no end in sight. Not even the familiar gurgle of the river met him as he walked, and it wasn’t until he felt a tentative touch at his elbow that he jerked, turning to see Shara Bey grinning at him.

“Mother,” Poe breathed, confusion flooding his mind even as a sense of calm, of _safety_ , washed over him.

“Poe,” Shara said, a teasing note in her voice. “Almost thought you’d gotten lost. Your father will have our hides if we’re _both_ late. Everyone’s already there.”

Poe said nothing, but a torrent of memories suddenly flooded his mind and he relaxed, laughing lowly. “Stars, it’s not papá I have to worry about,” he groaned, and Shara’s mouth pulled into a knowing smile as she gently guided Poe forward, a hand at his elbow. Poe turned to smile at her, and she laughed, her eyes filled with pride. He could hear the river now, beckoning him forward, his feet picking up the pace when he saw the small group who had gathered by its edge. From this distance he could hear Leia rebuking Han for something, and Luke's private smile showed that this was something he had heard before.  Kes Dameron stood slightly apart, watching with a curious cock to his head as Finn and Rey regaled him with an adventurous tale, but there was one person in particular who stole his breath away, and it wasn’t long before Poe was running forward and launching himself into a pair of strong arms.

“Good catch,” Poe said with a grin, watching with amusement as Ben’s dark eyes flickered with fond irritation before Poe drew the other man into a soft kiss. “Sorry I’m late,” he murmured.  Ben only huffed.

"To hear my mother tell it, it's a common trait among pilots.  Maybe we should've gotten married in the sky," Ben said dryly, and Poe couldn't help but laugh as he stroked the sides of Ben's face, marvelling at the soft texture of Ben's skin, unaware his own hands were shaking until one of Ben’s lifted to cover his own and for a moment Poe thought he saw Ben’s face flicker and something felt _off_ , something felt _strange_ , but Poe tried to push it away, focusing instead on the strong arms that held him and the warm affection he felt curl in his chest and the familiar face that—

Poe blinked, tracing Ben’s face carefully. “What happened to your scar?” he murmured, and Ben’s expression twisted into one of confusion, and that feeling was back, the feeling that something was wrong, that something had changed, but then Ben was being pulled away and Poe was reaching and grasping at _nothing_ , panic welling in his chest as a scream tore through the air. He turned, searching, desperate, to see not the white-blue waters of the river that had been there before but a slithering darkness and the sight of Ben, held steady by shadowy hands while he thrashed and screamed and _begged_ in the black waters, a cruel laugh echoing in the shadows around them.

“No,” Poe said, breathing raggedly as pure _fear_ lanced through him, but he pushed forward, plunging into the inky blankness of the not-water, leaving the shore and the people on it behind with no hesitation, desperate to reach Ben, to wipe the look of animal fear from his face, but something was stopping him, halting his movements, and suddenly the blackness was gone and he was left facing an aisle surrounded by crumbling stone. A light drizzle of rain fell around him, but Poe could feel nothing on his skin, his chest heaving as he tried to figured out what had happened, where Ben had gone, because this was _wrong_ , he wasn’t supposed to be here, he was supposed to be with Ben, on Yavin IV, surrounded by their families as they pledged their lives to each other but no, no, something was wrong there too, wasn’t there? He—

“Leia,” he breathed, for suddenly she was there, her face frozen in horror and dread as she looked forward, unmoving, the still figures of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker flanking her. Slowly, fear stealing the rest of his voice, Poe followed their still, dead eyes.

At the end of the pathway a figure stood, his back to them both, a strange light surrounding his body. Poe’s hand instinctively reached for the blaster that was suddenly at his hip, and he crept forward, but when the figure turned he felt a sob of relief tear from his throat.

“Ben,” he breathed, stumbling forward, hands reaching up to trace the scar on Ben’s face once he was close enough to touch. “Ben, what’s going on? What happened here? Your mother and father—“

“They’re dead,” Ben rasped. “Snoke said they were a weakness. My mother, my father, my uncle—weak, all of them, and they spread their weakness to me. I had to do it, Poe, don’t you see?” he begged, his hands lifting to cup Poe’s face even as Poe jerked back. “They had to die. By my hand. It’s the only way Snoke will believe I’m ready, but it didn’t work. I killed them and I can still feel it. I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Ben, what are you saying? They’re right here, I saw them—“ He tried to move his head but Ben’s hands moved and his grip was firm on Poe's jaw, his dark eyes wild and filled with so much pain and desperation that Poe felt his own heart ache in response.

“Please,” Ben said, the light pulsing around him, “you have to help me.”

The rain was coming down harder now, plastering Ben’s dark hair to his skin, and Poe lifted a shaky hand to push the wet tendrils from his face. “Ben,” he pleaded, “I don’t understand.” There were shadows pooling at his feet now, reaching up and up and up, and Poe could see the light surrounding Ben beginning to flicker, but instead of spluttering and vanishing it suddenly lashed out at the shadows, which retreated with an indignant wail but soon redoubled their efforts as Kylo’s hands fell from Poe’s face.

“Help me, Poe,” Ben said, his voice becoming increasingly desperate. “ _Please_.”

“All right,” Poe said, his hands resting against Ben’s neck. “Anything, Ben, _anything._ ” And then Poe’s vision exploded into pain as a red beam burst to life, his mouth opening in a soundless cry as it pierced his chest. Ben’s head was bent, broad chest heaving with exertion, the light shimmering around him gone, and all Poe could feel was the agony of Ben’s crimson blade as it hummed around him, _in_ him.

“Ben,” Poe cried, and when Ben looked up his eyes were glowing an inhuman, sulphurous _yellow_.

\--

The dream had shaken him, and Poe had awoken to the feeling of hands clawing at the sheets that had pooled against his chest—his own, he’d realised after taking in a frantic breath, which he’d expelled with a broken laugh. It had been the work of a moment to shimmy out of bed, pulling a white tee-shirt over his head, and then he’d been walking, his feet bare against the cold metal of the hallways, blanketed by the long black sleeping pants he wore while on base. At first, he’d thought his feet were taking him to the river, where they had so many times before, and in his agitated state he almost hadn’t realised he’d stepped into the cellblock until it was too late.

Now, as he stood at the end of the corridor, watching the lone guard wander off muttering about needing a ‘fresher break, he almost felt ill. But he pushed forward, overriding the code on the door with his own clearance, stopping dead when he saw Ren.

Poe knew, logically, that Ren had to sleep sometimes, even if the pronounced circles under his eyes showed that he was getting less than he probably should have been. Traumatised from being cut off from the Force or not, all living creatures eventually reached a point where functioning bodily and mentally was no longer possible, and Poe _knew_ that, had pushed the limits more than once, but for whatever reason the concept of Ren sleeping was as alien to him as the Force itself, so when he realised what the crumpled figure at the far end of Ren’s cage was he felt his breath catch in his throat, his hand trembling as a sudden wave of nausea and fear overtook him. Still, he crept forward, skirting around the rounded electric walls of the force cage until he stood near the side where Ren slept.  In this strange stillness, Poe thought he could almost see—

“Ben,” he whispered, his voice raw. He wondered if he’d been screaming in his sleep before he dismissed that thought. Then, swallowing, he asked the question that had been burning in his chest ever since Kylo Ren’s face had been bared to him all those weeks ago: “Why, Ben?”

But Kylo Ren didn’t answer, his features still and unnatural in sleep, his body curled tightly into itself, as though Ren were trying to make himself as small as his frame would allow.

Poe left before the guard could return to his post. 

\--

If Finn seemed more alive with Rey and Skywalker’s return, his laugh more vibrant and every action more animated, Poe was more subdued. He took great pains to hide it, though, and if anyone noticed how tired he seemed, they didn’t comment, and he did his best to ensure they had no reason it, giving no one cause to doubt his commitment. The topic of Kylo Ren was something neither Finn nor Rey seemed to want to acknowledge, not out of fear but rather something else that Poe could not seem to pinpoint (disdain, perhaps—hatred), so it was three days before Rey plunked herself in front of him as the three of them took a break from their respective training regimens and brought him up, in a roundabout way.

“Did it work?” Rey asked, cocking her head to the side and tapping the side of her temple. There was a ghost of a grin on her face, and it took Poe a moment to realise what she was getting at.

“No clue,” Poe admitted. “Haven’t had a chance to test it. The lizards cut him off from the Force.” He thought, briefly, of Ben, who had always been more comfortable with the Force than with a weapon, even a lightsaber, and frowned at the brief stab of sympathy. He wondered if, to Ren, not being able to feel the Force was torture.

It probably was, he realised with a sense of unease. Torture the General had authorised. He told himself it was for a good reason, that Ren was too strong not to be limited, but he felt abruptly unsettled all the same.

Finn joined them then, a towel draped loosely around his neck as he sat down next to them and said, "Serves him right. He's dangerous. What are we talking about?"

“Shielding techniques,” Rey said. “I asked Luke about them, and he gave me some tips, though I’m not sure they’ll work with you.” Her nose wrinkled a little in thought.

“Shielding techniques?” Finn asked.

“Against Kylo Ren,” Poe replied. "Something to buy time should I ever be unfortunate enough to be in that situation again."  Finn’s eyes narrowed, as if in memory, and he nodded. Poe wondered if he was thinking about the fight on Starkiller Base, or if he was remembering the countless prisoners he’d likely seen after Ren had finished extracting information from them.

"I think he's why Luke agreed to come back," Rey said.  In the afternoon light her face looked soft, wondering, but Poe knew that only concealed the sharpened steel that lay beneath the exterior. "He's too dangerous to be contained for long. I think Luke and Leia are trying to figure out what to do with him." She shrugged, her face darkening for a moment. She looked fierce, and Poe noticed her hand hovering not over the lightsaber at her hip but over the staff she'd placed next to her. "Strange monster, full of fear. He seemed... confused, angry, sad even, when I didn't kill him." A snort. "That would have been too merciful for him."

Mercy, Poe thought. He felt vaguely ill. How many things would Kylo Ren consider _merciful_ _?_ What was mercy to a creature like Ren?

“You know, I never understood why he didn’t kill you, Poe,” Finn said abruptly, before proceeding to chip off another fragment of Poe’s existing world by adding, “You know, when I told Heaver—the ‘trooper watching you—that Ren needed the prisoner, that wasn’t a lie. Those were my orders.”

Poe’s mind went carefully blank, all the sounds of D’Qar fading into the background as he processed the words. He’d always assumed that Finn had been lying, that it had been a ruse. No one would dare question an order from Kylo Ren, Poe knew, and to hear that it hadn’t been entirely a lie was enough to steal the oxygen from his lungs and deprive him of all higher thoughts.

“Hey,” Rey said, snapping her fingers in front of his eyes. Poe blinked, shaking his head, but his thoughts refused to settle.

“Guess he thought I was too charming to kill,” he said weakly. “Y’know, I always thought you made that part up, Finn.”

“Nope,” Finn said, watching him carefully. “You all right, Poe?”

“Oh, sure. Just. Wondering what in the hell else he wanted. After all he got the map piece.” A note of bitterness crept into his voice, and suddenly Rey was there, her expression fierce as she said, “and he won’t ever have the opportunity to do something like that again, locked up as he is.”

“Yeah,” Poe said, standing, but even as he threw himself back into the workout, he couldn’t quite shake the thoughts from his mind.

Mercy.  He wondered what mercy was to a weapon like himself.

\--

He hadn’t planned on going to see Ren today. He was tired, and after he’d stepped out of the ‘sonic he’d wanted nothing more than to nap, but the questions were burning in his mind more fiercely as Finn’s confession and Rey's words mingled together with the Ren he’d seen last night, unconscious on the floor of his cage, and the dream Ren who had looked at him with no scrap of humanity left in his face. It was a moment of weakness, one Poe’d thoroughly chastised himself for when he’d woken that morning, but the more he thought about it the more he found he needed answers, not just to those questions but so many others, including ones he knew Ren wouldn’t be able to answer, for they were questions surrounding Poe’s own motivations, and why in the hell he cared enough to—to do _any_ of this.

Unbidden, his hands rose to press against his abdomen where, the night before, he’d felt Kylo Ren’s lightsaber pierce his skin. There was an alien fear thick in his mind as he remembered Ren’s eyes, a sickly yellow, and _stars_ he didn’t _understand_. He could ask Skywalker, he knew, but he was with Rey—training didn’t stop because they were among the Resistance again—and Poe hadn’t wanted to disturb them for his own selfish reasons as much as anything else, and the General…

She had enough pain in her life already. He didn’t want to burden her with this when she was already so happy to see her brother; she didn’t need to hear Poe’s dreams about her son. So that left Ren—Ren, who _owed_ him, if nothing else, and whom Poe never felt bad burdening with this stuff, not when he was the cause of it. If Ren could see the black in Poe’s heart, as he so claimed, then he could damn well deal with it when Poe dragged it to the surface and shoved it in his face. There was no point in hiding such things from someone who already knew.

His first clue that something was off was the complete silence of the cellblock, and the feeling of unease that came with it, like something in the air was trying to warn him. Sure, the corridors were often quieter, but this, the _absence_ of all sound, reminded Poe of the cellblock at night. The second clue was the lack of a guard at Ren’s door. The thought occurred to him that the guard could have simply gone on break, like the one last night had, and so he stuck around a few moments, frowning, before he shrugged and stepped forward, keying in his override code and watching the door slide open, only to immediately freeze.

The ysalamiri lay in twin puddles of their own blood, throats slit and large bodies slumped over in their deactivated cages, and the lack of a barrier meant that there had been nothing to staunch the flow of their lifeblood as it dripped over the sides, pooling on the floor. That, however, wasn’t what had Poe’s own blood turning to ice in his veins.

Ren’s cage was deactivated, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yet again I pushed the intended events of this chapter back and am making people wait. For those of you who may have wanted more Luke and Rey, I'm sorry they didn't feature much, but they come in more next chapter, which also happens to be a biggy in terms of plot and whatnot.
> 
> If you didn't read the beginning notes, I am very, very sorry for the wait. Things have been a bit rough and hectic and I am a Sad Muffin. Thanks to everyone who's still sticking around.
> 
> Your comments keep my muse up and help me write faster + gauge how many people are still reading, which is important because I write for myself as much as for others, but I already knows how the fic ends and can wait a long time for updates, so comments really help me know how many people are still reading/interested and how much time I should devote to this vs my other projects.
> 
> As always, feel free to come hang with me on [tumblr](http://benamidalaas.tumblr.com/)!


	9. steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Resistance has a traitor in their midst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate writing action scenes so, so much. Unbeta'd, as usual, so all mistakes are my own.

It wasn’t inconceivable that Ren could’ve escaped. He was a powerful Force-user, trained in techniques Poe himself was certainly not privy to, and it was entirely possible that, in all the weeks Poe had been visiting, Ren had simply been building up his strength, waiting for the perfect move to strike and strike _hard_ , somehow overriding the cage and slitting the throats of the ysalamiri before overpowering the guard and fleeing the room.

That theory, however, was dashed as soon as Poe’s eyes caught up to his mind and he realised there was a crumpled figure sprawled at the far end of the platform, a mess of dark robes and hair and laboured breathing.

 _Ren_. He hadn’t escaped, he was here, so what—

Poe’s reflexes kicked in and sent him diving towards the ground only moments before a blaster bolt crashed into the wall where his head had been a second prior, and he cursed as his hand flew to his belt to grab his blaster only to find it empty—of course it was, he’d come almost straight from the ‘fresher, and now he was facing an unknown enemy in nothing but a loose white undershirt and a pair of dark pants. Breathing deep, he did his best to steady his racing heart, crawling towards the nearest available cover, narrowing his focus as he grasped at the veneer of _commander_. The shot had come from the far side of the room, near the control panel to Ren’s cage, and Ren himself—

Poe’s stopped. Ren. The ysalamiri were dead, the cage deactivated, and yet Ren hadn’t escaped. Ren was here, a pale figure slumped on the ground like a broken doll, and when Poe peeked out from behind his meagre cover he could see that Ren’s ungloved hands were clenched and stained with blood, his body wracked by fine trembles, his face turned away. He was in _pain_ , Poe realised, his thoughts warring with a savage combination of _good, suffer_ and _nonono_. It was the work of a moment to try and inch closer, to reach out with one hand, but he was forced to scramble back with a cut off snarl as the Force cage suddenly blazed back to life, distantly aware that someone in the room was laughing, a high-pitched, almost hysterical sound.

“Commander Dameron!” someone called, followed by another fit of laughter and a pained gurgle. “Wasn’t counting on you being here. Was told you were elsewhere. Stupid, stupid, you never come on a schedule. Whoops!” Poe could hear someone shifting, and then the sound of something metallic clattering to the ground. _A spy_ , his mind whispered. _A plant_. _They’re here for Ren_. He swallowed his own bark of bitter laughter at the thought. _I should let them take him_ , he thought, mind racing into overdrive. _Give them what they want_. But as soon as the thought appeared he snarled and shoved it into the deepest recesses of his mind, trying to get a glimpse of Ren through the distorting energy field of the cage. There was something dark and angry and _possessive_ uncurling in his chest, and unbidden thoughts of Ben slammed into his mind, of Ben whispering _help me_ _Poe please_ as the rain slammed down around him. He looked back at Kylo Ren, who was not the Ben he’d known but who still had traces of him, and he thought of the General, who loved her son despite it all; who had lost so much. No, _no_ , they couldn’t give Ren back. Ren was _theirs_ , and Poe—

He exhaled, calming the frantic pacing of his thoughts. His fingers twitched and ached for the controls of Black One, where he was in control of everything, but he was not among the stars, he was here, and without a weapon he would have to work fast to subdue this breach. On the ground and in the air he was still Commander Dameron, one of General Organa’s best operatives, and this was _nothing_. With that thought in mind he began the slow creep around the circumference of Ren’s reactivated cage, careful not to touch the energy field.

“Sithspit,” the intruder said, and Poe bit down on a surge of cruel satisfaction at the frantic intonation of the curse and the stuttering way the voice continued: “You messed up. You weren’t supposed to be here. This—“ there was a crackling noise—a comm, Poe realised, urging himself to go faster—and then: “I’ve been compromised, send someone for Ren quickly, send—“ but they didn’t get to finish because Poe had rounded the cage and launched himself at the source of the voice, hissing in satisfaction as the sound of the person’s skull hitting the floor reverberated through the room.

It wasn’t until Poe had wrestled the traitor’s blaster away that he realised who it was.

Tanis, the mousy, nervous little man Poe had warned off days and days ago, was looking at him with ill-concealed hatred in his eyes. His chest was heaving and there was blood smeared across his face and in his teeth, his nose crooked from a hit that hadn’t been Poe’s own. _Ren_ , Poe realised, remembering the blood on Ren’s hands. He’d gotten a hit in, it seemed, before whatever had incapacitated him had struck, and Poe felt a resurgence of anger over that, at the thought of Ren laying helpless at the bottom of the cage.

He hated Tanis even more for putting that thought in his mind. Ren wasn’t _helpless_. Ren was a murderer many times over. He tortured and killed innocents, he reaped death and destruction wherever he went, he was six-plus feet of intimidation shrouded in dark robes; he wasn’t and never should have been _helpless_.

Yet now he was, and something this man, this _traitor_ had done had rendered him that way, leaving him at the mercy of—

Poe breathed in, his eyes fluttering as he pressed a hand to Tanis’ throat. There was something else here. Something dark and terrible that seemed to taint the very air, and he knew, suddenly, the General’s face flickering to life in his mind, that whatever was being done to Ren, whatever had rendered him little more than that crumpled form on the floor, had been enabled by the death of the ysalamiri. The realisation made him snarl, Poe’s mind narrowing to a single focus. He jammed the blaster he’d wrestled from Tanis against the man’s temple.

He should interrogate him, he knew. He should demand to know what Tanis was doing here, who had sent him, but what was the point? Poe knew. It seemed the First Order had gotten tired of waiting and had at last showed their hand. They wanted their weapon back.

Well, Poe thought savagely, they were going to have to try harder than this to get him.

Beneath him, Tanis was beginning to gurgle, and something terrible in Poe, a dark whisper from deep in his chest, told him to press down _harder_ because Tanis was weak and foolish and deserved nothing less, but when a strangled whimper— _Ren_ —cut into those thoughts Poe recoiled from them with revulsion and horror.

Quickly, before he could change his mind, he changed the setting of the blaster in his hand to stun, firing it at Tanis with a cool precision, watching as the spy ceased his struggling and lay limp upon the floor.

There was no time to enjoy the victory. His mind was still caught on that whimper, so achingly familiar and yet not, calling something deep within him, something he’d been foolish to think was dead and gone and buried. It ached, and Poe thought of the past fifteen years, wishing the General had told him that Ben wasn’t dead. That Ben had become Kylo Ren. He would have then been able to harden himself against Ren’s suffering had she done so, separating Kylo Ren and Ben from each other and preventing that pained whimper from registering, from _mattering_ , but she hadn’t, and he hadn’t, and so with frantic movements he slammed his hand into the panel that controlled the cage, biting back a pained hiss when, in his rush to get to Ren, he burned his hand on the field before the cage had fully deactivated.

“Hey, hey,” Poe said, sliding to his knees beside Ren and gathering Ren’s limp form against him with practiced movements. Ren’s face was pale, more so than usual, lined with pain, and as Poe carefully cradled Ren’s head in his lap he almost thought Ren unaware of his presence until Ren let out a gasp, his hand flying up. Poe grabbed it instinctively, uncaring of the drying blood, panic and a strange sort of fear splitting open his chest.

 _Fear for the General, she’s lost so much_ , he tried to tell himself, even as he looked into Kylo Ren’s face and saw whispers of the boy Poe had once loved. Kylo Ren wasn’t Ben Organa anymore, he had left that behind him, but, Poe realised with a sickening sort of dread, Poe had never left Ben behind. He’d carried Ben with him, nurturing the memory. Kylo Ren might not have been Ben anymore, but for the part of him that had once been that boy, the part of him that had once belonged to Poe, that Poe had not _relinquished_ … it was enough to draw forth the worry, the need to protect the way he’d failed to do so many years ago.

“Ren,” he said, feeling Ren’s grip tighten on his hand and then slacken. “Ren, please, you need to tell me what’s happening. I don’t know how to fix this.” Ren’s only answer was the arching of his back, his mouth opening in a soundless scream and _stars_ Poe didn’t know how to fix this, didn’t know what to _do_ , so instead of trying to get Ren to speak again he merely entwined his fingers with the other man’s and did his best to soothe him, his thoughts frantic. He almost jerked back when he felt a familiar touch against his mind, mental shields springing to life as he immediately began to recite a rapid stream of binary, but then Ren _whimpered_ , terrified and in so much pain and something old in Poe _broke_ at the sound, Ren’s face blurring until only Ben remained, until the presence pushing at his consciousness wasn’t the invasive, painful hand of Kylo Ren but the desperate plea of Ben Organa. That’s what it was, Poe realised. Ren was begging, _help me_ in all but name, and so Poe took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut, and let Ren _in_ , gasping as another mind slipped in alongside his own, blazing, brilliant, and hot but disorganised, scrambled, and in pain, desperately searching for something, _anything_ , to ground it. _Here_ , Poe thought desperately, trying to reach out and grasp with clumsy fingers, _here, here, here_. He drew the presence in, envisioning a nest, a safe space, a _haven_ , small and protected.

Poe barely registered the way Ren’s physical body curled into his as his mind did, latching onto that safe space in Poe’s mind, anchoring itself, just as he barely registered the words tumbling from his own lips, old things, lullabies and comforting words from Yavin IV in a tongue that wasn’t Basic, things his mother and father had once whispered to him on dark nights. With each word, Ren seemed to curl further into him, seeking shelter against the preying darkness Poe could feel. He thought of his dream, of Ben—Kylo—floundering in the murky waters, those shadow hands holding him fast, and swallowed.

As Ren struggled to reorient himself, Poe allowed himself to drift back, an observer in his own mind, thinking about the last time Ren was here, in his head. There was a spike of phantom pain at the thought, as if the memory had brought back the sensation, but it was… it was _different_ , and when he followed it to its source he realised it wasn’t phantom pain at all but Ren’s pain, slipping through whatever crumbling barriers Ren had left. The thought was enough to trigger a surge of mixed anger in Poe’s chest as he remembered Ren digging through his mind, searching for the map while Poe, strapped to that chair, had been helpless to stop him, but when Ren’s presence in his mind flinched and seemed to scatter and retreat into the pain Poe reacted on instinct, drawing it back in, clumsily dredging up old memories and thrusting them forward because Poe recognised this fight, recognised that Ren was battling something dark and terrible that had a hook in his mind that he could not fight on his own.

And, Poe realised with a sharp intake of breath, Ren was trying to shield him from it, even as he used Poe’s mind as a willing anchor to fight as best he could.

Distantly, he registered a beep, one of the consoles, and without thinking he pushed a series of engine sequences and binary numbers forward, wrapping himself and Ren in them, whispering a low “that’s it, _yes_ ” when he felt Ren slowly latch onto the concept, bringing them back to the physical present. His fingers slipped through strands of Ren’s dark hair, petting and soothing, holding until Ren’s grip on his hand abruptly slackened, the presence in his mind dimming and flickering.

For a moment, Poe felt a brief stab of panic—Ren was dead, Ren was dead and Poe had failed—but he breathed a sigh of relief when he felt a small trickle of amusement pressed into his mind.

Ren, exhausted, assuring him that he was all right.

Poe tightened his grip on Ren’s bloodstained hand, his mind a bit of a daze. Somewhere inside he registered traces of Ren’s consciousness, still carefully anchored to his, protected to the best of Poe’s meagre ability. _Recovering_. The thought made something protective and angry flare in Poe’s chest. He didn’t know what that thing was, the darkness and pain that he had barely been able to sense from Ren’s side of the connection, until his mind flickered back to his conversation with the General.

_The ysalamiri prevent Ben’s master from reaching him through the Force._

Snoke.

 _Master_ , came the answer Poe hadn’t been seeking, a whisper-thought from the tiny kernel of Ren that made Poe sick as comprehension slammed into his skull. The attack wasn’t just to incapacitate Ren, he realised. It wasn’t just to make him ready for retrieval. No.

It was to punish him.

A tired sigh was all he got from Ren, whose breathing was slowly returning to normal as he rested his head in Poe’s lap, pressing his head into the hand that was still carding through his hair, but Poe barely noticed. Someone was coming, the sounds of distant combat and running footsteps echoing through the hallway outside, bringing to mind the message Tanis had managed to send out before Poe had incapacitated him. Poe’s eyes flickered towards the door, one hand reaching for the blaster he’d discarded when he’d been too focused on Ren, something old and primal filtering through his veins and echoing in his thoughts. _I’ll kill anyone who comes through that door_ , _Snoke won’t have him again, I won’t fail again_.

He waited with baited breath, finger poised on the trigger. When an unfamiliar masked figure in dark armour appeared in doorway, Poe fired without hesitation.

The Knight of Ren fired back.

\--

Poe Dameron had given a lot of thought as to how he’d die in his three decades of life. In his darkest moments, when he was surrounded by his inadequacies and the memories of past failures, he thought that perhaps he would die alone, on an assignment, without anyone ever knowing until it was far too late. The machine of war didn’t stop for just one man, he knew, and Poe had been aware of that from the beginning, even before he’d risen to be one of Leia Organa’s best operatives, feeling a surge of pride whenever his name was spoken with respect and awe. Other times he imagined going out in a blaze of glory, taking out as many First Order fighters as he could.

Never in his life had he considered dying on the floor of his own base, the head of an enemy nestled in his lap, too slow to escape the blaster bolt that was careening towards him, but just as he had opened his mouth to draw in his final breath the bolt _stopped_ , hovering in midair, crackling its anger at having been denied its intended target. He didn’t know who was more surprised: him, Ren, or the Knight that stood stiffly in the doorway, mask trained on Ren’s outstretched hand. Either way, Poe wasn’t stupid. His reflexes were honed from decades of aerial combat, the best pilot in the Resistance bar none, and so he looked at Ren’s strained face and got out of the way as quickly as he could, just in time to see Ren’s face crumple in pain again as he lost control of the bolt. It struck the floor of the cage in a spray of sparks, and Poe spared a moment to think, angrily, _Snoke_ before he was grappling with the Knight in a series of rapid hand-to-hand movements, all too aware that the Knight had the advantage of armour where Poe had none.

The Knight was fast, their strikes precise, aiming for parts of Poe’s body that would incapacitate him as quickly as possible. There was no doubt in his mind that the Knight was there to bring Ren back—Ren, who was grappling once more with an invisible enemy, his face twisted in concentration. Poe didn’t even think before he latched onto the flicker of Ren’s consciousness still residing in his mind.

 _Use me_ , he thought as the Knight pulled a blade out from the hidden folds of their robes, _Ren, use me_.

Ren’s presence was less overwhelming this time, allowing Poe to concentrate on the Knight, but the momentary lapse was enough for the Knight to surge forward with their blade, Poe’s instincts working against him as he held up his arm and turned to block the strike. Pain blossomed in his upper right arm as the blade sunk into the skin and muscle, forcing him to stumble back with a bitten off mewl, taking the blade with him. He was distantly aware of the way Ren’s presence curled within his mind, gasping again as the pain suddenly receded in a way that could only mean Ren had done something, but there was no time to marvel or wonder at the action for the Knight wasn’t to be stopped, firing off another shot that Poe barely managed to avoid, groaning as he pulled the blade from where it was lodged in his arm. The blood oozed out as soon as the knife was gone, and as Poe registered it he swore, he _swore_ that he would die before he let the Knight take Ren away, before he let anyone take Ren back to Snoke, because no matter what Ren had done, _no matter what_ , this was torture and Poe…

Poe could not abide torture.

Armed with a knife covered in his own blood, Poe lashed out in a series of trained strikes, snarling in frustration when the Knight blocked them. His entire body felt numb, his mind once again narrowed in focus, except this time it was focused on two points: the Knight attacking him and Ren, protected within the sphere of Poe’s concentration as they both fought for their lives.

The sound of more footsteps sounded, but it wasn’t until someone shouted “Poe!” that the Knight’s intense concentration faltered, and in that moment, when their eyes slid from Poe to the doorway, Poe struck, sliding his knife up under the Knight’s helmet and watching with a heaving chest as the Knight stumbled back, gurgling on their own blood, reaching up desperately to try and dislodge the knife. Poe didn’t give them that chance. Kicking their legs out from under them he grabbed the Knight’s precision pistol, expression grim, rage coiling in his chest and in his mind, a litany of _you will not touch him_ echoing through his conscious mind. Something inside told him to stop, that the Knight would be more leverage against the First Order, that they could provide valuable information, but something else, the soldier, the combatant, the protector, screamed at him to kill them because whoever they were they were too dangerous, they were too unpredictable. More than that, however, was the knowledge that the Knight had been sent specifically to retrieve Ren, to return him to Snoke and stars knew what else where he would be punished further for his failings.

Poe made his decision, jamming the blaster to the Knight’s head and firing in a process that took less than three seconds, watching as the Knight’s struggles abruptly ceased.

He barely had time to wonder what he had done (nothing you haven’t done before, Poe desperately tried to assure himself, thinking of the countless enemies he’d felled at the controls of Black One) before he was crawling back to Ren, who was breathing heavily on the floor. Whatever he had done, it didn’t matter. It _didn’t matter_ because he was alive, and Ren was alive, and Poe, Poe was going to ensure it _stayed_ that way because he was never going to let anyone take Ren forcefully from him, he was never going to let him go without a struggle. The part of him that had been at Ren’s mercy rebelled against that thought, snarled and hissed at the idea of protecting such a monster, but that part didn’t matter either because Poe had executed someone in cold blood to protect Ren, and something terrible in him whispered that he’d do it again. _No different from the skies. No different from the stars_. And so he hauled Ren bodily into his lap, the Knight’s blood staining his hands and transferring to Ren’s face as Poe ran his fingers over it, tangling in Ren’s hair once more.

“He can’t have you,” Poe whispered, too low for anyone but Ren to hear, the blood from his wound oozing down his arm and blending in with Ren’s dark robes as he pressed a possessive hand against Ren’s chest. “He can’t. I won’t let him.”

Ren shuddered, a silent response, and it was only then that Poe allowed himself to look up, to register the horrified look on Rey’s face as she stood in the doorway, gazing at the bloodstained room and at the two men curled in the centre of it, but far worse was the face of General Organa, who looked at them with a terrifyingly blank expression, her eyes trained on where her son’s bloodstained form was cradled in Poe’s arms.

“Poe,” she said. She seemed older, suddenly. “What happened here?”

There were a few agonising moments of silence before Poe was able to clear his thoughts enough to remember how to speak to her. His arm was suddenly throbbing again, and he felt light-headed as he tried to separate himself from Ren’s mental presence.

“We had a spy in our midst, General,” he managed at last, inclining his head to where Tanis’ unconscious body still lay. “He killed the ysalamiri. Ren’s master used that to his advantage.”

Another set of footsteps, and then Skywalker was there, expression grim. Any other time his presence might have been comforting, but something in Poe recoiled when he saw him. It took him a few moments to realise that the sudden aversion to Skywalker was coming from Ren, still anchored in his mind, and not Poe himself.

“Leia,” Skywalker said. “We’ve managed to drive off the other attackers. They’ve retreated. Karé Kun has led a squadron of fighters after them to make sure they aren’t regrouping.”

“Good,” the General replied. “It must have been a diversion.” Her eyes slid to her son, whose own eyes were closed, though he was still conscious.

“He was the target,” Poe said, his grip on Ren slackening slightly. “The mole, Tanis, deactivated the cage, and Snoke subdued him.” He paused, watching as both Skywalker and the General shared a look, the worry all too easy to read. “The Knight was to retrieve him. Ren stopped a blaster shot and saved my life.” Voicing that gave him pause, remembering how the blaster bolt had hovered there in a way he’d only seen once before, except this time it had been to help instead of hinder, but he let the thought slide away in the haze of his mind, losing it in a mess of pain and blood and the familiar curl of pride that he had been able protect what was his, so similar to what he felt following battles with his squadron that he barely gave it any thought.

The General’s eyes flickered to the fallen body of the Knight. A pool of blood had formed under their head, and when the General’s eyes returned to Poe he knew what she was thinking. Her eyes were like Ben’s, and so it was all too easy to read the worry and the wariness in there. That he had killed the Knight but subdued Tanis wasn’t good. It spoke of actions performed out of emotion, a decision that Poe knew would land him a psych eval, and for the first time he cursed himself, especially when he heard the General turn to Rey and ask, in a low voice, what she had seen.

None of them were expecting Ren to speak up, his voice hoarse as he said, simply, “Dameron had no choice.”

The effect on the General was instantaneous, her shoulders stiffening and her face displaying a million and one emotions as she stepped into the room, drawing towards where Poe and Ren were as if approaching a pack of wild nexu. When she spoke, it was with the voice of a commander addressing her subordinates, rather than a mother addressing her son.

“He made the right call,” the General said, and it wasn’t phrased as a question, but Poe knew it was. Ren sighed, shifting in Poe’s arms, his eyes flickering open at last, revealing a multitude of things—pain, exhaustion, sorrow, all combined with a sliver of amusement that twisted the corners of his mouth.

“Sagitta Ren was strong,” Ren rasped. Poe stiffened, surprise lancing through him. He’d half expected Ren to double back, to expose his weakness, his _rage_ , his decision to kill an enemy in cold blood rather than let them live, but Ren was doing none of that. Ren had been picking at Poe’s weaknesses for weeks and had today been handed one on a sacrificial altar, and he was choosing to conceal it instead of weaponise it.

Giving no indication that he was privy to the thoughts racing through Poe’s mind, Ren continued: “She wasn’t strong in the Force, but she never would have allowed herself to be captured, and her orders would have been to kill herself and all of us had she been unable to secure me. Dameron,” he repeated, “made the right call.”

Poe was quiet, his fingers stilling in Ren’s hair as the other man spoke. That Ren would defend him, that Ren would cover up such an emotional decision, was a piece of information that Poe didn’t know how to contend with, so instead of trying he merely filed it away for later, focusing his attention instead on the pain that ran through his body when he tried to move his arm.

“Leia.” Rey, he registered, who had walked forward to kneel by him. She didn’t spare a glance for Ren, whose eyes had narrowed at her approach. In her mind, Poe knew, Ren was beneath her notice. There was no sympathy spared for him in her world. Poe almost envied her for that simplicity of thought. “Poe’s injured. It looks deep.” There was a strange sort of anxiety in her voice, but her expression was hard when she said it. Poe wondered if she was remembering Finn and the battle she rarely talked about. The General’s face abruptly morphed into one of concern, and then Skywalker was stepping forward, his movements stiff.

“Poe,” Skywalker said carefully, “I need you to let go of Kylo Ren.”

 _Dangerousdangeroustoodangerous_ suddenly exploded in Poe’s mind, combined with an intense wave of hatred and anger and, strangely enough, _fear_.

Ren’s fear. Ren’s emotions. Ren’s thoughts.

Poe’s grip tightened as his brain, hazy with blood loss and exhaustion, latched on to the one thing keeping him steady.

“No,” Poe said. “No, _no_ , he stays with me.”

“Poe,” Skywalker said, his eyes awash with compassion, pleading with him to understand, to agree, “the medics will need to assess your injuries, and his, but Kylo Ren is dangerous.”

“ _No_ ,” Poe snarled, and even he was surprised with the vehemence in his voice as Ren’s presence flared to life in his mind before retreating to the shining beacon of stability Poe had erected for him. Skywalker’s eyes had widened, large and sad, but when they flickered to the form of his nephew they looked unsure, and the General was looking at him with suspicion now. Poe knew he had to salvage this.

Breathing deep, Poe said, “Snoke’s in his head. I am the only thing he has. Please, General.”

Poe could feel Ren’s anger spike, upset that Poe was giving this information away, but Poe’s hand tightened and, though Ren’s mouth had curved into a snarl, he said nothing, too tired to fight. Slowly, almost like a petulant felinx, Ren turned his head away, and Poe didn’t have to feel Ren in his mind to know Ren was trying to tune everyone else out, especially Rey, who was looking at Poe with an expression of concentration and ill-contained worry. He knew it was cheap, playing on the affection the General still had for her son, but at this moment he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“All right,” the General said at last, her voice soft and sad. Poe shuddered, his eyes squeezing shut.

“Up,” he told Ren, who opened his eyes and fixed Poe with an expression that would have been baleful were it not so lost, and together they stood, Poe with some additional support from Rey, whose face was grim. Skywalker watched them carefully, looking torn and so very, very old, but Poe paid him little mind, focusing on getting himself and Ren to medbay, conscious of the way Ren trailed him like an aggressive shadow, and of how the General and Skywalker both turned back every few seconds to ensure they were still following, Rey bringing up the rear of their broken little pack. He wondered if he would regret this when he was all fixed up, the way he had regretted many rash decisions in his life, but for now, as he felt Ren’s hands steady him when he stumbled, he decided it didn’t matter. Regrets would be had later, when he had more space to think.

For now, he simply let himself be led.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so wibbly on action scenes. Yikes. When did those become so hard? Anyway, patting myself awkwardly on the back for getting this out before the official two month date, at least. Sorry, everyone. I was writing 30k for another exchange and I've been getting ready to go back to school, which means getting ready to start applying for my master's stuff and trying to get together with all my friends before we fly off to opposite ends of the country. Agony.
> 
> Anyway, I want you all to know that I _will_ be finishing this fic, however long it takes, because it is all planned out, and I literally cannot thank you all enough for sticking by me, holy shit, your support means the absolute _world_ to me. I want this fandom to grow and become a supportive place again.
> 
> Comments are loved and appreciated and cherished and used for muse (radio silence is draining), and I'll be getting busy again, so knowing people are still interested helps me know how to divide my time once papers start coming up.
> 
> Please feel free to come and chat with me on [tumblr](http://benamidalaas.tumblr.com/)! :D


	10. order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An aftermath, of sorts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It hasn't quite been a year since I updated. Quite. It was close.
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the late update. Long story short: life sucks, and everything went to hell as soon as I went back to my last year of university to discover mould in my apartment because the construction crews working on the building broke the roof. So, yeah, that set the tone for the rest of the school year, and since then it's been issue after issue. The only upside is that now I have my degree. Hooray?
> 
> This likely isn't my best work. I'm sorry. I tried really hard to recapture the tone, but of course, when you're writing after a year long gap, sometimes that can be difficult. Please forgive me, and I hope you enjoy :c
> 
> This chapters is for all the people who supported me and were patient with me while I figured my life out. You know who you are.

“So,” Finch said as Poe slid into the seat next to him, “not a twi’lek, then.”

There was a brief pause, and then Finch swallowed thickly and looked away, subdued by the force of the glare Poe was levelling at him while Pava sucked in a deep sigh and muttered something unfavourable under her breath.

“Not to say he isn’t—I mean—you don’t have to be a twi’lek to look good,” Finch babbled as Poe continued to glare, “Ren’s not completely unfortunate looking, younger than I was expecting and like there are no horns or anything, I just—“

“Gerak,” Pava groused, “for the love of the stars above us _please_ shut your gob.”

Finch floundered for a few more minutes before subsiding, staring down at his dinner with a look of such despair that Poe was almost, _almost_ tempted to forgive him. The old Poe, the Poe they knew, likely would have forgiven him in a heartbeat, or at least pretended to. The Poe they knew would have rested a hand on Finch’s shoulder and smiled and said it was no problem, and then cracked a joke about the entire situation and buried everything under sunny smiles and gentle encouragements.

It was terrifying to realise he felt too tired for that now.

In the four days since the attack, the base had been doing its best to rebuild, though Poe’d been surprised, initially, at how much senseless damage had been incurred. When he’d stopped to think it’d made sense, though. After all, as far as he could tell, the target of the raid had been Ren, and to make off with the Resistance’s most valuable prisoner would require a major diversion. The First Order had thus abandoned their usual shadow tactics for that, Poe thought bitterly, yet in the end they hadn’t managed to acquire Ren for all their smashing and howling.

Ren.

Poe closed his eyes, willing down his headache and ignoring the twinge of phantom pain in his now-healed arm. Stars _,_ what a mess.

Poe Dameron had grown up knowing the Force was real. There was the tree, of course, the one that had marked the Dameron homestead on Yavin IV for as long as they’d been there, and there had been the stories his mother had told him as they zipped through space and stars, but more than that there had been _Ben_ , Ben and the temple he’d often creep away from, Ben who had always seemed to embody the quicksilver nature of the Force, who had showed Poe, in no uncertain terms, that the Force was real. Back then Poe had seen no danger in such powers. In a strictly hypothetical sense, he understood how terrible people could abuse those powers—evil figures like Vader, like the Emperor—but Ben hadn’t been a terrible person. Ben was good, Poe’d thought back then. Ben would _never_.

Now that he knew the truth, now that he’d seen and experienced the dangers of the Force, he wanted to kick his younger self for being so damn naïve. The feeling of Ren tearing into his mind had been agony, but agonising, too, had been watching Ren curled up on the floor of his cage, unable to defend himself until Poe had lent him strength. It had… it had _triggered_ something, something deep and primal, and right now, still so fresh from the attack, from cradling Ren’s body in his bleeding arms, from _letting Ren into his mind_ , he didn’t want to think about what it might mean. He was chastising himself enough already.

Poe remembered sitting in medbay, waiting for an attendant; Ren, physically better off, had been shackled to the bed with stun cuffs, refusing to look at either his mother or Skywalker, breathing shallow. He hadn’t said a word since he’d snapped back from Poe’s mind halfway to medbay with a warning that the Knight's blade might have been laced with poison.

“It would be in everyone’s best interest were that looked at,” Ren had stated, calm wording betrayed by the slight edge to his voice.

“Can’t you heal it, then?” Poe had snapped, almost stumbling again. Ren’s face had darkened for a moment, then cleared so abruptly that Poe would’ve doubted his own memory were he in the habit of doing so.

“No,” Ren had said at last, his eyes trained on the sluggishly bleeding stab wound. “The dark side does not allow for healing techniques.”

The low chatter of the mess hall suddenly seemed stifling, Finch’s guilty stare cutting deeper than it should have. He’d been neglecting his squad, flying with them on missions but without the usual bright commentary, and he knew that many of them were worried, if the way Kun and Arana—Karé and Iolo, as he knew he should have thought about them by now—constantly eyed him was any indication. Worried, concerned, wary of the strange obsession their commander seemed to have with the Resistance’s monstrous prisoner. He felt a rush of shame, and then reached out, gently laying a hand on Finch’s shoulder, ignoring the twinge of his mostly healed injury.

He said nothing, but Finch seemed to relax, accepting the apology for what it was. Poe smiled, but it was a shadow of his old one, his energy too sapped to maintain anything convincing for too long. His squad should be his first priority. He was their Commander. It was his job to build them up, to make them feel confident without verging into arrogance, not to drag them down. He couldn’t afford to forget that now, not when his head was alight with so many different things, the conversations he’d had with Ren over the last little while tearing through his mind like a holo on fast forward.

“How have you been, Poe?” Kun— _Karé_ —asked then, her expression oddly soft. Poe almost laughed. Karé was about as soft as the jagged side of a mountain, but he felt an alien sense of concern curling in his mind at her words before it was whisked away. He looked towards the entrance to the mess hall, where a flash of dark robes caught his attention, and answered, with resigned eyes: “Never better.”

 

\--           

 

The atmosphere in the room was grim, not that Poe had expected it to be anything but. Resistance brass was all too aware of how vulnerable they were right now, after all. In the brief respite following the destruction of both the Hosnian System and Starkiller they’d let their guard down, and the First Order’s small attack force had taken full advantage. They were, every last one, shaken and ashamed.

Poe exhaled, resting his arms against the table in front of him. He could sympathise with that. What he wasn’t sure he could sympathise with, however, was the topic of discussion and the way the gathered members of the Resistance’s government were eyeing him with a mixture of pity and the same wariness that was beginning to creep into the eyes of his squad.

“What would locking him up do?” suggested one of the milder voices present. “It sure didn’t work last time.”

“It didn’t work last time because there was a traitor in our midst,” Admiral Statura bit out. “The fault was not with the equipment, or the measures taken to ensure the prisoner was subdued. So we stick him back in a cage and double the guard. I’ll admit the ysalamiri will be harder to replace, but I’ve heard neural disruptors can work in a pinch, or stun cuffs. The prisoner is Force-sensitive, not invincible.”

“ _The prisoner_ has a name,” Major Caluan Ematt said mildly, “and I doubt Kylo Ren will sit down placidly just because you slap a pair of cuffs on him, Admiral. He doesn’t trust us.”

“ _Should_ he?” Statura shot back, looking incredulous. “This is war, Ematt, and we are in a Resistance base, not a First Order rehabilitation centre or some sort of high-class Coruscanti hotel.”

“Neural disruptors won’t work,” Skywalker interrupted, his voice calm, but Poe caught the minute tightening of his mouth. “Kylo Ren is too strong with the Force, and likely trained to resist such forms of restraint.”

“They worked on him after the attack,” Statura said, frowning.

“They worked on him after the attack because he wasn’t trying to escape,” Poe cut in, surprising himself and the other occupants of the room, if the way everyone’s eyes shot to him was any indication. “Think about it,” he continued, keeping his own eyes fixed resolutely forward. “He didn’t resist. He was offered a chance to slaughter me and flee the base and he chose to save my life instead. He’s not going anywhere.” There was a collective murmur from the gathered officers, many of whom hadn’t known that particular detail. He looked up then, and when he saw the General’s eyes fixed on him, he understood at last why she had asked him to accompany him to this meeting. The feeling was not unlike the sensation of freefalling, or crashing, an unwelcome thing that twisted his stomach and made his hands tighten against the cold metal of the panel. He was reminded of the fact that, before she was the General of the Resistance, she had been a senator, that even before she had even become one of the galaxy’s greatest heroes, before she’d been a mother, she had been a senator. She’d been counting on him speaking in Ren’s defence.   She knew how to place people where she wanted them, and Poe, Poe had admired her so much, loved the idea of her so much, that he had let himself be moved, placed, time after time; a pawn to the queen.

He shook his head, drawing in a breath, telling himself that this was something he’d always known. That the hot anger unfolding in his chest was unwarranted, regardless of whether or not it was all his. He’d known what he was to the Resistance since day one, that ultimately his life was expendable, and that he would gladly sacrifice it on the General’s orders, because he _trusted_ her. He still trusted her, but he felt vaguely ill this time, meeting her eyes— _Ben’s eyes_ —and feeling for all the world like something inside him was cracking irrevocably. Trapped aboard the _Finalizer_ he’d held onto hope that she would send someone for him, even knowing that it was unlikely, but it was all he had, this hope that he’d escape, that he wouldn’t die here at the hands of a masked monster who—

 _Ben._ Kylo Ren. It all came back to him in the end, didn’t it? Everything trickled back to that sad and serious boy and the rivers and trees of Yavin IV, the sad and serious boy that Poe Dameron had loved with all he had because he was a fool who loved too freely; the sad and serious boy that Poe carried with him even now, all these years later, and who he could see staring out from his mother’s face, the mother he had admired and followed and trusted all his life.

 _I’ve made mistakes, and some of them have cost me more than I ever thought I’d have to pay_ ,” Leia’s voice whispered in his head, the voice of a mother, a memory from those months when Kylo Ren’s identity had been fresh in his mind. _“I’m sorry, Poe._ ”

 _Yeah_ , Poe thought as he watched the room dissolve into a series of arguments. _I’m sorry, too_.

 

\--

 

The dream hadn’t been as vivid this time, Poe thought as he stared at himself in the mirror of the little ‘fresher joined to his small room. Whereas before the other ones had featured his home planet in vivid colours, this time everything had been grey and discoloured, shadows dancing around his peripheral as he’d dashed to the temple, racing an invisible foe to a goal he could not discern. The rest was fuzzy, only indistinct shapes in his memory where he wished there’d been clarity, but he remembered reaching, _pleading_ as the darkness had surrounded the temple, before running forward again, hand outstretched towards the one source of colour he could see.

And he remembered the fear in Ren’s eyes as that horrible yellow left them and the shadows swallowed him whole.

 

\--

 

“What do you know about Kylo Ren, Rey?” Poe asked as they sat haphazardly on and around Black One, lunch spread out around them. He couldn’t help but chuckle as BB-8 rolled forward to butt Rey’s leg where she sat on the ground, legs sprawled in a v-shape.

“What do I know about him?” Rey repeated with a frown as she glanced up at him, eyes wary. “You sound like you have something specific in mind.”

Her gaze was intense, and Poe shrugged in an attempt to ward off her scrutiny, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck. For a moment he was worried she’d press further, but eventually Rey just sighed, clearly not deeming the pursuit worth the effort for the moment. He was suddenly and absurdly glad that Finn had gone back to the mess hall for more food.

“Luke thinks he’s dangerous,” Rey said, “but you already know that. I can’t tell whether Luke blames Ren or himself more for what happened.”

“So he told you, then?” Poe said, seizing on the admission. “About what happened to Kylo Ren.”

“More like about what Ren did,” Rey said, her nose wrinkling slightly. “Killing all those students.” She shrugged. “I’d asked Luke before why he left when everyone needed him, why he only left vague pieces as to his whereabouts when he could have been here with Leia, but he never said much, only that he’d needed to."  She paused, then laughed, the smile transforming her whole face.  "It was kind of annoying, really.”

Poe forced himself to smile, and she peered at him a bit more before continuing, turning her gaze back to BB-8, who had gone suspiciously silent beside her.  He didn't doubt that there were things she wasn't telling him, that there were things she _wouldn't_ tell him, but anything he could get from her—well, he hoped it would help sort out the mess in his mind.  After a moment she seemed to make up her mind, though, and continued, just as Poe thought the conversation was over.

“One day I demanded to know why he'd gone. We were in the middle of a lesson, I was frustrated, and I wanted to know why he had sat here doing nothing for the last however many years instead of going out there and stopping monsters like Ren.” She took a deep breath and hunched forward a little, eyes focusing in on something Poe couldn’t see. Then her lashes and voice lowered as she said, in as close to a flat monotone as he’d ever heard from her, “He said, _you’ve lived an enviably short life, Rey, to know nothing of guilt and regret_.” A pause. “I almost corrected him, of course I’ve known guilt, but I don’t think it’s the same kind. He blames himself.”

 _Yes_ , Poe agreed, _but does he blame himself for the right reasons?_

It was a thought he didn’t necessarily want to have, but he couldn’t help it, his memory cast back to the way Ren had buckled under Snoke’s onslaught, the way he had reached out desperately for someone, anyone, to help. After the _Finalizer_ Kylo Ren had been a monster in his mind, a faceless creature whose sole purpose in life was to feed on the suffering of others. Perhaps he still was, in a way, but Poe knew now that Kylo Ren was also a man, one whose own suffering was etched in the deep cracks not just in his skin but in his mind as well, great flares of darkness amongst the cool light that Poe had tasted when Ren had sought his solace—and beyond that, beyond Ren's own feelings, the shadows of something far more sinister lurking just outside of Poe's reach.

Poe looked down at his hands, turning them this way and that as he considered himself. The smile that stole across his face was not a happy one, and from where he sat he could see Rey watching him with a guarded expression on her face, the one she always seemed to revert to when she was around anyone who wasn’t Finn for a prolonged period of time. Poe sighed.

The creature that was Kylo Ren, without face and without identity, may have been a monster, but Poe was intelligent enough to see what the others chose to ignore: that this monster had not been born, but created. And he had no doubt that the true monster was still out there, biding its time.

Waiting.

 

\--

 

Without her mask, the Knight of Ren looked frightfully ordinary and young, something that made something twist uncomfortably in Poe’s gut. Her skin was pale, almost as white as her hair, and perhaps he would have thought her asleep were it not for the darkened blood that stained her neck, or the charred bits of hair that indicated the blaster shot that had ultimately taken her out. _She can’t have been much older than Ren_ , he thought, eyes narrowed, but dismissed that thought as soon as it occurred. War didn’t care about age, it never had.

“Poe,” said a voice behind him, and it was a testament to Poe’s force of will that he didn’t whirl around, blaster drawn.

“You should know better than to sneak up on someone who’s armed,” Poe said instead, keeping his voice mostly level and despising the edge of bitterness that crept in despite his best efforts.

He didn’t need to turn to know that Kylo Ren had cocked his head to the side in that irritating way of his, and Poe felt a brief surge of amusement not his own before it was abruptly snuffed out, causing him to exhale harshly. “Stop.”

“I tried,” Ren said, voice betraying nothing, a low, oddly melodious sound that had Poe’s knuckles tighten where he was gripping the edge of the table. Then, almost soundlessly, he was at Poe’s side, and Poe couldn’t help the sideways glance he snuck at Ren’s profile. Ren’s face may not betray him but, like Ben, like the General, his eyes gave away everything if you knew how to look, and Poe…

Poe didn’t think he’d ever _forget_ how to look.

Logically, he knew it wasn’t a surprise that Ren felt grief for the fallen Knight. Poe knew little about their order, or about their purpose—Ren himself had been the only one aboard the _Finalizer_ , he’d learned, the others scattered places he knew not—but he had no doubt that there’d been some kind of shared experience between the Knights of Ren that allowed them to stay together. He wondered, almost dully, if they’d all been Force-sensitive, or if that was just Kylo himself, but before he had time to contemplate that further Ren snorted, turning to look at him with a sullen twist to his mouth that almost distracted from the sorrow in his dark eyes.

“Ask, Poe. Stars know you were never subtle when you wanted to know something.  I can feel your curiosity even without the anchor.”

Poe swallowed his indignation, but he was unable to stop the scowl that broke out across his face at the words, unsure whether he was more annoyed because they were true, because of Ren's explicit acknowledgement of the anchor he still had in Poe's mind, or because it was something Ben Organa would have told him once, a long time ago.

“Who was she?”

Ren turned his head back towards the Knight’s prone body, and then, to Poe’s surprise, he reached out with one hand, running his fingers down one of the many small braids in the Knight’s white hair. There was a small surge of grief in the corners of Poe’s mind, but it was quickly smothered, Poe knew, by Ren, whose face had twisted into a grimace, his hand falling away from the Knight almost limply.

“Sagitta Ren,” Ren said, and Poe blinked.

“Sagitta _Ren_?” he said, and Ren gave him a look of such scathing condescension that Poe felt his face burn despite himself.  He remembered Ren saying that name earlier, when everything in Poe's worlds had become blood and rage, but it hadn't truly sunk in at the time.

“We all share the title of _Ren_ somewhere in our names. We are the Knights of _Ren_. So what you refer to me as in your mind is, in fact, a title, a distinguishment of rank, and not truly my name as most of the people here seem to believe.” The smile that curved Ren’s mouth was not kind, but it wasn’t cruel either. “I imagine it’s the equivalent of referring to me as _General_.” Ren’s eyes almost seemed to sharpen when he said that, and he angled his face towards Poe as if something had suddenly occurred to him, his gaze strangely piercing in a way that made Poe want to squirm because _stars_ that was just how the General always looked at him when she was figuring something out, when she had _figured_ something out, and Poe didn’t know what Ren was looking for but he knew it had been found when Ren suddenly chuckled.

“That’s what you call _her_ , is it not?” Ren said, the natural soft cadence of his voice conflicting with the sharpness that had lanced through it at the mention of his mother. “ _General_. But what do you call the others? Surely you don’t call them but their ranks, but—ah. That’s it, isn’t it? You call them by their last names.” He tapped the side of his temple, and though Poe knew Ren wasn’t actively invading his mind he still threw up the barriers, reciting a list of hyperspace routes that had Ren cocking his head to the side again.

“I’m not reading your thoughts,” he said, as if Poe didn’t already know that. “Is that your way of keeping them at arm’s length? You say their first names out loud, you pretend at camaraderie, but even your oldest friends here, they are not first names in your thoughts. And then, when they die, or when they leave you, you can almost pretend you're all right.”

“No,” Poe snarled, the lie making his tongue thick, panic creeping in at the edges of his vision, the hyperspace routes becoming jumbled and really he could have laughed, he should have, because trust Kylo Ren to break down his barriers without ever even trying, without ever even entering his mind. He didn’t need the Force to get what he wanted from Poe, he just had to widen those dark eyes and speak in that familiar voice and Poe fell to pieces around him, just like he always had.

“You should have taken off the mask, you know, back on the _FInalizer_ ,” Poe said, angering colouring his tone and making him forget himself the way he only ever seemed to around Ren. He could see the curiosity crossing Ren’s face, followed by a wariness that Poe was too incensed to dig into. He wouldn’t allow himself to feel any sympathy for Ren, who could not expect to prod and feel no retaliation. “If you had, perhaps you wouldn’t have even needed to tear through my memories.” They were the wrong words, and judging by the sudden widening of Ren’s eyes and the brief flare of fear— _fearregretsconfusion_ —that lingered in the back of Poe’s skull by the anchor, Ren knew it too. This time when Ren cut the thoughts off it physically _hurt_ , but before Ren could speak Poe had turned around and left the room, needing to get away not from Ren but his own words and the truth he suspected they represented.

           

\--

 

The anchor had been quiet the past few days, to the point where Poe was almost convinced it was gone completely. When he’d first welcomed Ren into his he hadn’t expected Ren to _stay_ , and when he was being more charitable with his thoughts he allowed himself to think that Ren likely hadn’t meant to stay, either. Ben had once told him that it was always easier to form links and bonds between familiar minds, even if one of the parties was Force-null, and Poe suspected something like that had been inevitable when he’d taken Ren into his mind, shielding him from his master, from the black, painful presence that had been Snoke.  It was still unnerving how quickly he'd gotten used to the brief flares of emotion that weren't his own, the odd feeling of not being completely alone in his mind, something that could be nice— _you aren't alone, you aren't alone, finally someone can see_ —or frustrating depending on Poe's mood.

“You look like shit, Commander,” one of the pilots shouted at him as he walked across the tarmac, BB-8 wheeling contentedly at his side. Poe’s outward response was a laugh and a joke about a court martial but inwardly he was grimacing at the truth in the man’s words. When Ren had cut his side of the anchor Poe hadn’t ever thought he’d miss it, but after days of living with Ren curled contentedly in one corner of his mind the sudden loss was akin to suddenly being forced into solitary, even though Ren hadn’t been there long by any stretch of the imagination, and while Poe had, at first, been grateful for the space Ren was giving him, both physically and mentally, he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the man since their encounter in the morgue, and he—

No. He did not.

“Fuck,” Poe muttered under his breath, and briefly he wondered if the Resistance High Brass had been able to succeed in chaining Ren once more before he shook his head. The General would never allow her son to go back in bonds, he knew, even if her love for him was now permanently tainted by grief, though whether that grief was grief for her own failures or the failures of her son was something Poe had yet to figure out.

He tried to reach out towards the place where the anchor had been, but he wasn’t Force-sensitive like Ren; he didn’t see the world the way someone with the Force would be able to. All he felt was a vast nothingness, an absence where that comforting weight had once been, and he realised with a sense of shame that he almost wanted it back, that he almost wanted to see Ren lurking in the corners of the base again, the silent phantom of D’Qar’s Resistance base, if only so that Poe may assuage the protective monster that had flared in his chest when he'd found Ren unconscious and in pain on the floor of that cell.

 _Stop it_ , he told himself sternly, _you don’t care, you shouldn't care_ , but that was as much a lie, as many aspects of his life had turned out to be lately, and so, with a grimace and a suggestion to BB-8 to go find Finn or Rey, Poe took off towards where he knew the General had allotted Ren some quarters, situated away from the main barracks.

When he arrived there was a man standing next to the door, rifle dangling haphazardly in his hands, but he straightened to attention when Poe showed up with a nervous look on his face. Poe almost snorted. It hardly mattered if this man was slacking off in his guard duties, not when Ren could kill him with a wave of his hand weapon or no weapon, but all he did was bark out an order for the soldier to leave, which he did with a quick nod. Then, sucking in a determined breath, Poe punched in the overwrite code and entered the small room.

Ren was sitting cross-legged on his bed when Poe entered, and though Poe knew Ren was likely surprised by his appearance, Ren didn’t show it. He didn’t even look up as the door slid shut, allowing Poe the time to watch him, to study him, without those dark eyes searching every single crevice of Poe's soul.

There was no doubt in Poe's mind that Ren was powerful, despite this display of seeming placidity.  Poe had watched him carve through entire villages without mercy, and he had been on the receiving end of Ren's powers himself, yet there was something strange about all this, a question that had been burning in his mind ever since he'd been discharged from medbay.  If Ren was so powerful, why did he need the anchor to Poe's mind, the anchor that Poe had allowed and continued to allow despite the part of him that shrieked and protested the very idea of letting Ren into his mind again?

( _Safe, you need to keep him safe_ , something whispered, but Poe dismissed that part, shoving it back into the depths of his mind where he didn't have to deal with it, not yet, not when things were still so unsure, when Ren himself was still such a walking paradigm, when nobody on this entire damn _planet_ seemed to know just what to do with Ren.)

Ren should have been able to defend himself.  Poe knew the strength of Ren's mental capabilities, knew the strength of Ren's command over the Force.  Ren was powerful, immensely so, something Poe had known from their childhood days, and yet...

 “Why didn’t you shield yourself from your master?”  The question was out before he could stop himself, but he didn't back done once he'd spoken it, and he kept his eyes trained on Ren's still form, unwilling to leave until he had the answer.

“I can’t.” Ren’s reply was blunt, inviting no further prying, but Poe barrelled past the unspoken warning, his eyes narrowing.

“You can stop a blaster bolt with your mind but you can’t keep someone out of your head? I’m shocked, with all the time you spend trouncing about in the minds of others.”

That provoked a reaction, Ren snapping his head up so fast Poe almost swore he could hear the crack of joints moving, but for the first time Poe wasn't sure an angry reaction was what he wanted from Ren, and he lifted his hands in a calculated gesture of placation before waiting to see if Ren would take the unspoken truce.

Finally, Ren spoke again.  “I was never taught. There was never any need until Starkiller and the scavenger.”

“Rey.”

There was a tick in Ren’s jaw, but he didn’t otherwise acknowledge Poe's correction.

“So why didn’t you ask your master to teach you after that, then?”

He didn’t expect Ren to laugh, but the sound wasn’t even remotely happy, and Poe found himself stepping back inadvertently, unaware that he had even done so until he felt his fingers brush the durasteel door.

“Isn’t it obvious? He doesn’t want me to know. If I know, I can keep him out. Leader Snoke needed to ensure I wasn’t straying. I wanted to prove to him that I wasn’t.”

Poe felt his face drain of its residual colour. It was obvious in retrospect, something he should have thought of himself, but it was all the more horrifying to hear it stated in Ren’s blunt-yet-soft tone of voice, as if it was an accepted fact and not a gross infringement of his person. He wondered how long one had to live with having no true sense of privacy to speak of it like that, as if it was normal, as if it were expected.

He thought of the anchor, silent and subdued.  He had allowed Ren to create it, and he had allowed it to remain until Ren had silenced it from his end.  It had, despite Poe's misgivings in the aftermath, been a consensual arrangement, and it wasn't even a strong bond, allowing for little more than the transference of surface emotions unless concentrated on.  He didn't think Ren's connection with Snoke was like that, and the very fact that Snoke had never allowed his apprentice to learn how to shield, when even _Poe_ knew how, was enough to make the monster in Poe's chest burst forth again, a flare of anger towards Ren's unseen master that made him feel momentarily light-headed.

“Kylo,” Poe said slowly, watching as the other man’s eyes narrowed, “how long has he been there? In your head.”

Ren made a curious noise, though at what Poe wasn’t sure, before he said, “I don’t remember a time where he wasn’t there” in an equally blasé tone, either heedless or uncaring of the revulsion that was currently colouring Poe’s vision, the rage that made his breathing quicken and his head spin. This whole time Snoke had been there, watching, waiting. The darkness that had clung to the corners of Ben’s eyes when they were children, the monster who had murdered Ben and created Kylo Ren, he had seen everything of Ben’s childhood, had likely known of every stolen kiss by the riverside, of every smile and every promise, and of every little insecurity that Ben had ever had.

The General. Skywalker. They had known, they had to have known. The General had all but admitted it to him, and with a jolt Poe remembered a young Ben telling him that his parents had sent him away because _sometimes I frighten them_ , _and sometimes I frighten Luke, too_. Had they known about Snoke and sent him away to Skywalker to try and be rid of him? And if they had, why had Skywalker not taught his nephew ways to block out Snoke’s voice? Why had they not thought to shield him, to lend him strength, until he was strong enough on his own?

“What he did in the cell. He can do that again, can’t he.”

Ren’s mouth twisted into a merciless grin, and suddenly Poe could feel him again, the comforting weight at the back of his mind, but also the tendrils of pain that seeped through as Ren illuminated the space he’d created for himself to whisper, _he already has_. Then Ren’s presence was gone as soon as it had seeped in, and Poe was left feeling empty and alone once again, the vestiges of Ren's presence echoing uncomfortably in his mind. He clenched his jaw, and to Ren’s credit he didn’t shrink back as Poe moved determinedly forward. “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

Ren’s eyes sparked with curious amusement, but now that Poe was looking, he could see the exhaustion in Ren’s mind and feel the echoes of pain and exhaustion that Ren hadn’t quite been able to keep from seeping through. “He can’t kill me.”

“But he can hurt you.”

“He can.”

“He does.”

Ren's brow furrowed.  “Yes.”

Poe sucked in a breath. “Open the anchor,” he ordered, and was surprised when Ren obeyed, allowing Poe to feel the surprise but also the _relief_ that seeped back into the corners of his mind as Ren renewed the connection. He didn’t know what Ren felt from him in return, so he didn’t ponder it. Instead he reached forward, seizing one of Ren’s large hands in his own. “You say you don’t know how to shield?”

Ren’s eyes were wary, but he nodded, and this time it was Poe’s turn to smile without comfort.

“Then I’ll teach you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully the next update won't take as long. Please let me know what you think? Because of how long it took me to update I'm really not sure who's still reading, and this chapter... came out a lot different than my micromanaged planning originally dictated. For those who are still reading, I appreciate your patience. Thank you <3
> 
> (As always, you can find me on [tumblr!](http://tarisians.tumblr.com/))


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